PUBLIC OPTION NOW! Edition

Here we go folks... I'd bang my head against the wall, but I'm unsure about the quality of the health care I'd receive...

Again, I can barely turn on CNN in the mornings because I know someone is going to say something about health care that will make me absolutely livid. Someone will say "trigger option" one more time and I'm going to put my head through the TV in an effort to scream directly at Olympia Snowe that people need %*^&%! health care RIGHT NOW. Like this second. Like twenty years ago. Like ONE HUNDRED years ago.

The Power to Cloud Men's Minds....
The debate -- if you can call it that-- is so freaking contorted now that nobody knows what side is up. August was, if you believe the pundits, a total disaster of town hall brawls. People are out there shouting "Keep your goddamned government hands off my Medicare!"

Voices of reason and logic, like Robert Reich--a former secretary of Labor and now professor at UC Berkeley-- are being practically drowned out in the furor. Here's his explanation of the public option, clear and simple.


But summertime's over, babycakes. It's time for the big B.O. to take things in hand because frankly this bipartisanshit-- sorry, bipartisanship thang ain't working out.
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The Character of Our Country
In case you missed it, the full text of Obama's address to Congress is here. (Video here) Thank God, because just as Obama was getting to the emotional peak -- "That large-heartedness – that concern and regard for the plight of others – is not a partisan feeling. It is not a Republican or a Democratic feeling. It, too, is part of the American character." my DVR cut off. Doesn't matter. Here's the rest.

You see, our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem. They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom. But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, and the vulnerable can be exploited. And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter – that at that point we don't merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.

What was true then remains true today. I understand how difficult this health care debate has been. I know that many in this country are deeply skeptical that government is looking out for them. I understand that the politically safe move would be to kick the can further down the road – to defer reform one more year, or one more election, or one more term.

But that's not what the moment calls for. That's not what we came here to do. We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it. I still believe we can act even when it's hard. I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress. I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history's test.
Because that is who we are. That is our calling. That is our character.

Shape the future. The time to call or email your reps is now.

Contact your individual representatives and senators. Look 'em up, folks -- call your friends in Montana, call your friends in Blue Dog states. It's time to make a squawk --to inform these Congress members that THEIR jobs are on the line. Email is cheap -- health care isn't.

If you're interested in the details of Obama's own plan, visit the White House site.

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In this week's New York Times, Paul Krugman puts out a simple defense of the public option:

Most arguments against the public option are based either on deliberate misrepresentation of what that option would mean, or on remarkably thorough misunderstanding of the concept, which persists to a frustrating degree: I was really surprised to see Joe Klein worrying about the creation of a system in which doctors work directly for the government, British-style, when that has nothing whatsoever to do with the public option as proposed. (Forty years of Medicare haven’t turned the US into that kind of system — why would having a public plan change that?)

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And about the National Health Service...

Much maligned in the news in the month of August was the UK's National Health Service. Eric's mom-- who also sent me a link to this very interesting, and not atypical, story about the NHS-- was out here for a visit last week and happened to be staying in a B&B with a physician from the UK's National Health Service. I'm grateful to her and to Dr. Stephen Shepherd for letting me reprint some of his thoughts on this health care debate.

SOME THOUGHTS OF A VISITING GP

Whilst visiting San Francisco in August 2009 a few thoughts occurred to me concerning the current debate in the US about the proposed changes to the US Health care system and comparisons with the UK's NHS.

In every country in the world there are basically only 3 ways of accessing health care.

The rich simply pay cash for whatever they want.

Those with health insurance received 'managed care'

The poor are thrown on the basic healthcare provided by the State

In the UK the NHS covers both the last two catagorys. The standard of care for ALL is equivalent to the managed care received by US citizens with insurance. A few people in the UK have private health insurance, usually as a perk of their job. In the past this allowed you to bypass some of the NHS queues. Nowadays, with the better financed NHS, private health insurance tends just to allow you to have private room, rather than share a 4-bedded bay, which is the norm in NHS hospitals.

The vast majority of hospital specialists or Consultants do most of their work in the NHS and do private work to supplement their NHS income. Private hospitals are not really set up for complex procedures and if you are seriously ill you are best off with the NHS.

The key to the NHS is the General Practitioner or GP (Primary Care Physician). Your GP will refer you for both NHS and Insurance referrals, but will provide the bulk of your care. Most chronic diseases in the UK are dealt with by the GP, who will know you and your past history and will tailor your healthcare for you personally. Primary Care is very strong in the UK.

Now to deal with a few points:

Rationing: all healthcare is rationed, except for the rich. In the UK most treatments are covered by the NHS and your doctor is free to prescribe any drug or treatment that is marketed in the UK. The exceptions are new expensive treatments whose clinical effectiveness are assessed by an independent body called the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), before they become widely available on the NHS. In the US health care is rationed by the Insurance companies managed care system, or by your ability to pay. I understand it is not unknown for people to die in the US as they lack the money to fund their treatment. I leave the reader to decide which is the better system.

Waiting Times and Choice: in the past the wait for routine procedures could be measured in years, but since the advent of Tony Blair's Labour Government a lot of money has gone to improve matters. As a GP I can use the new Choose and Book computer system to book appointments during a patient's consultation, at a time and date of their choosing. Most routine appointments will be within a month. It is unusual for the wait for surgery to be more than 3 months. If your GP thinks you may have cancer, there is a rapid access system which gets you to see a Specialist within 2 weeks and any definitive treatment started within a month.

Quality: British doctors are trained to the same standard as those in the US and foreign graduates wanting to work in the UK must have a good standard of English and meet the clinical standards set by the various Royal colleges that supervise training in the UK.

Income: when the NHS was set up in 1945 many doctors feared that they would be out of pocket. This has proved to be far from the case. Most GPs earn £120000 from the NHS with very little from private work. Experienced nurses earn from £20-30000. Hospital Consultants earn around £100000 from the NHS, but their additional private income can vary from zero to £100000+ according to their speciality and/or personal choice.

Innovation: the charge that the NHS discourages innovation and invention just makes me laugh. The route to being a hospital consultant is through research. All hospital consultants only get their position once they have done some research and continue to do so once in post. British drug companies are amongst the best in the world and around 40% of current treatments had their origins in the UK.

I admit to wondering what lies behind the opposition to President Obama's health care reforms. I suspect that many Americans realise that sorting out your healthcare system will inevitably lead to other social reforms.

The NHS is a small part of a whole raft of social benefits that make up the British Welfare State.

Benefits are provided if you are unemployed, sick, disabled or caring for someone who cannot care for themselves. Everyone gets an old age state pension from 65. The elderly are one of the main beneficiaries of the NHS. Should you need residential or nursing home care as you get older then the state pays for that and allows you to keep significant personal assets.

The poor and other disadvantaged groups are not left to fend for themselves on the streets. Local government in the UK has a statutory duty to provide social housing for all who need it, together with social services care. The homeless are not left to roam the streets, but are housed in hostels, where they have their own lockable room. These hostels provide temporary accommodation until the local authorities can find somewhere permanent, usually in the form of a one or two bed apartment.

This extensive welfare system is the result of the Socialist Government of 1945 and is the result of the report carried out by Beveridge in the later years of WW2. It is important for Americans to remember that the UK, and Europe in general, is far more left wing than the US. The main British right wing party, the Conservatives, are much more akin to left leaning Democrats. The Labour Party is a left wing party that has moved a little more to the right under Tony Blair. Some of the views I have read from Republicans would have no place in British politics, except in our extreme right wing parties like the British National Party (BNP), who are viewed with contempt by the majority in the UK.

The downside of course to the Welfare state is the cost. Income tax in the UK starts at 20% and rises to 40% on any income in excess of £38000.

On mainland Europe the Social care systems are more generous than the UK, but their income tax rates are higher. In the US it seems you provide very minimal benefits, but have low income tax.

In the UK we have gone for the middle ground between the two.

A UK style system would almost certainly lead to the US middle class losing their mortgage tax relief, as happened in the UK. Perhaps this is the main reason for the opposition?

Benefits in the UK are aimed at providing a comprehensive safety net with benefit levels set to allow you to survive and stay in your own home. No one would choose to stay on benefit as even a modest income will give a better quality of life. For instance, except in times of recession, most people made unemployed would have found a new job within a month. The UK is still a net importer of employees.

A few people do slip through the net, especially in London, but people begging on the street is unusual in the UK and often they are people who have great difficulty engaging with any form of authority. Strenuous efforts are made by many state and charity groups to engage with these individuals.

Remember even these people have the right to see a GP and access all parts of the NHS. I have worked for a practice that provided services targeted at the homeless.

I am shocked whilst in the US, the richest country in the world, to see such affluence along side such abject poverty.

I would like to remind the US: 'No man is an island.'

Dr Stephen Shepherd, GP

Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire

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Final words from the Grand Fromage
Watching the funeral of Ted Kennedy last week, I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by how much there is left to do-- and from the top of Ted's list: the "cause of my life", which he outlined in an article for Newsweek last month. As usual, he doesn't just bemoan the opposition they face, but looks at the possibilities.

Incremental measures won't suffice anymore. We need to succeed where Teddy Roosevelt and all others since have failed. The conditions now are better than ever. In Barack Obama, we have a president who's announced that he's determined to sign a bill into law this fall. And much of the business community, which has suffered the economic cost of inaction, is helping to shape change, not lobbying against it. I know this because I've spent the past year, along with my staff, negotiating with business leaders, hospital administrators, and doctors. As soon as I left the hospital last summer, I was on the phone, and I've kept at it. Since the inauguration, the administration has been deeply involved in the process. So have my Senate colleagues—in particular Max Baucus, the chair of the Finance Committee, and my friend and partner in this mission, Chris Dodd. Even those most ardently opposed to reform in the past have been willing to make constructive gestures now.

I long ago learned that you have to be a realist as you pursue your ideals. But whatever the compromises, there are several elements that are essential to any health-reform plan worthy of the name.

First, we have to cover the uninsured. When President Clinton proposed his plan, 33 million Americans had no health insurance. Today the official number has reached 47 million, but the economic crisis will certainly push the total higher. Unless we act now, within a few years, 55 million Americans could be left without coverage even as the economy recovers.

All Americans should be required to have insurance. For those who can't afford the premiums, we can provide subsidies. We'll make it illegal to deny coverage due to preexisting conditions. We'll also prohibit the practice of charging women higher premiums than men, and the elderly far higher premiums than anyone else. The bill drafted by the Senate health committee will let children be covered by their parents' policy until the age of 26, since first jobs after high school or college often don't offer health benefits.

To accomplish all of this, we have to cut the costs of health care. For families who've seen health-insurance premiums more than double—from an average of less than $6,000 a year to nearly $13,000 since 1999—one of the most controversial features of reform is one of the most vital. It's been called the "public plan." Despite what its detractors allege, it's not "socialism." It could take a number of different forms. Our bill favors a "community health-insurance option." In short, this means that the federal government would negotiate rates—in keeping with local economic conditions—for a plan that would be offered alongside private insurance options. This will foster competition in pricing and services. It will be a safety net, giving Americans a place to go when they can't find or afford private insurance, and it's critical to holding costs down for everyone.

We also need to move from a system that rewards doctors for the sheer volume of tests and treatments they prescribe to one that rewards quality and positive outcomes. For example, in Medicare today, 18 percent of patients discharged from a hospital are readmitted within 30 days—at a cost of more than $15 billion in 2005. Most of these readmissions are unnecessary, but we don't reward hospitals and doctors for preventing them. By changing that, we'll save billions of dollars while improving the quality of care for patients.

Social justice is often the best economics. We can help disabled Americans who want to live in their homes instead of a nursing home. Simple things can make all the difference, like having the money to install handrails or have someone stop by and help every day. It's more humane and less costly—for the government and for families—than paying for institutionalized care. That's why we should give all Americans a tax deduction to set aside a small portion of their earnings each month to provide for long-term care

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There have been lots of tributes to Ted Kennedy of course, but I remember this one as especially lovely, from last year at this time, when Ted Kennedy appeared at the Democratic National Convention. But perhaps even more moving was Senator Robert Byrd's tribute:

I had hoped and prayed that this day would never come. My heart and soul weeps at the loss of my best friend in the Senate, my beloved friend, Ted Kennedy.

Senator Kennedy and I both witnessed too many wars in our lives, and believed too strongly in the Constitution of the United States to allow us to go blindly into war. That is why we stood side by side in the Senate against the war in Iraq.

Neither years of age nor years of political combat, nor his illness, diminished the idealism and energy of this talented, imaginative, and intelligent man. And that is the kind of Senator Ted Kennedy was. Throughout his career, Senator Kennedy believed in a simple premise: that our society's greatness lies in its ability and willingness to provide for its less fortunate members. Whether striving to increase the minimum wage, ensuring that all children have medical insurance, or securing better access to higher education, Senator Kennedy always showed that he cares deeply for those whose needs exceed their political clout. Unbowed by personal setbacks or by the terrible sorrows that have fallen upon his family, his spirit continued to soar, and he continued to work as hard as ever to make his dreams a reality.

In his honor and as a tribute to his commitment to his ideals, let us stop the shouting and name calling and have a civilized debate on health care reform which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name for his commitment to insuring the health of every American.

CONTINUE READING...

Living without Palin

SNL lampoons Biden's gaffe-ability. Realistically, in a four year term, can Joe provide NEARLY the amount of Govertainment as Palin did in one month?

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The Fun Corner

Oddities and videos from around the web:

• Remember the old Wasssup Budweiser ad? New version this year. Wassup? Change. True.
• Singalong: "If We Vote to have McCain," to "If I only had a Brain."
• For the College set: a Barackapella concert from last February.
• For the kiddies... "The Vet who did not Vet."

• Faces to watch out for: Fifth grader Damon Weaver reports on Joe Biden's stop in Palm Beach. Added bonus: Biden actually explains what the VP REALLY does.
• Depress me, why don't you: Obama's new website that allows you to track the various robocall and leaflet attacks that are going on around the country. I guess those attacks are what the McCain camp would call "grassroots"?
• Obama's online programming is just really mindbogglingly fun. Here's his tax cut calculator. You put in your income info and it calculates what your estimated tax cut would be under his plan.

Joe Biden is leading HANDILY in his reelection campaign for Senate this year, but what happen if he becomes VP instead? From the Congressional Quarterly, an article about what will happen to those Senate seats. "No matter who wins the White House, somebody's leaving the Senate. Should the Democratic ticket win, Illinois and Delaware are in for replacement senators. If the Republicans win, Arizona gets a new senator and Alaska gets a new governor. Either way, for a short, intense period, single-state politics will be in the national spotlight as fill-ins are chosen to serve in the Senate until the 2010 election. Arizona and Illinois allow substitute senators to stay in place until the unexpired term is done, which would be 2010 in the case of McCain and Obama. In Delaware, where vice presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr. is up for reelection this year, the replacement would stay until the next election, which is in 2010."Politico's Crypt blog notes that Jesse Jackson Jr is rumored to be in the running to replace Obama's seat.

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By contrast...

In all fairness, news organizations scoured the DNC records and, what do you know, they couldn't turn up any reimburements even remotely similar to Palin's clothing spree for the Obama-Biden tickets. Seems like Barack and Joe and Michelle and Jill, they um... BUY THEIR OWN CLOTHES! The best response the Republicans could come up with is that it's a scandal, a scandal, I tell you, that Barack Obama is using a campaign plane to fly back to Hawaii to see his seriously ill grandmother. Why isn't he swimming to see her -- THAT wouldn't cost any campaign dollars and it's not a lot to ask if he really loves her.

HuffPo reminds us that, "In early July the Obama family sat down for an interview with Maria Menounos of Access Hollywood. One of the topics discussed was Barack's status as a style icon, which amused his wife and daughters because, as Michelle points out in the interview, his belt and shoes need replacing, and his pants are 10 years old ('I hate to shop,' he explains). Michelle also reveals that the sundress she's wearing is from the Gap: 'Fortunately now they make really pretty stuff at all price ranges... [Barack] will be happy to know that this is, like, a $30 dress.' Her husband then high-fives her, and daughter Sasha announces 'Mommy buys everything from Gap!'"

Obama's suit, appropriate for a wide variety of situations, is a navy blue, worsted-wool, two-button suit tailored by Chicago's Hartmarx and costing about $1,500. Obama jokes that he had them just make him three in dark blue and three in grey, because he hates to spend time shopping.

Obama and his campaign have proven time and again that they are a responsible bunch, I have to say. In Chicago plans are afoot for a giant rally in Grant Park on election night, but that city is hobbled by a multi million dollar deficit and massive budget problems. Knowing how much such a rally is likely to cost the city, the Obama campaign has offered to pay for everything, from extra police, city workers and setup to the cleanup costs afterwards."'They have assured us that they're willing to pay,' said Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications spokeswoman Jennifer Martinez, adding that the city had yet to hit the total button. 'We're still outlining what some of these things will entail.' The U.S. Secret Service--and ultimately federal taxpayers--pays for nearly all the security around Obama. The city and state are likely to bill the campaign for things like street closures, crowd control outside a secure area in Grant Park, help with motorcades and overtime for public safety workers."

Joe Klein, who now can't get a seat on the McCain plane, figures he might as well go for the gusto, and comes out with a big piece in Time Magazine, "Why Barack is Winning":

I asked Obama about gut decisions, in an interview on his plane 17 days before the election. It was late on a Saturday night, and he looked pretty tired, riddled with gray hair and not nearly as young as when I'd first met him four years earlier. He had drawn 175,000 people to two events in Missouri that day, larger crowds than I'd ever seen at a campaign event, and he would be endorsed by Colin Powell the next morning. He seemed as relaxed as ever, though, unfazed by the hoopla or the imminence of the election. Our conversation was informal but intense. He seemed to be thinking in my presence, rather than just reciting talking points, and it took him some time to think through my question about gut decisions. He said the first really big one was how to react when incendiary videos of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's black-nationalist sermons surfaced last spring. "The decision to make it big as opposed to make it small," Obama said of the landmark speech on race relations he delivered in Philadelphia. "My gut was telling me that this was a teachable moment and that if I tried to do the usual political damage control instead of talking to the American people like ... they were adults and could understand the complexities of race, I would be not only doing damage to the campaign but missing an important opportunity for leadership."

Like adults... imagine. A candidate who want to talk to us like we have more than a sixth grade education.

Nicholas Kristof, in an editorial in today's Times, points out the weirdly uncomfortable and yet comforting truth about what an Obama presidency might mean, as a message to the world. "Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, which conducted the BBC poll, said that at a recent international conference he attended in Malaysia, many Muslims voiced astonishment at Mr. Obama's rise because it was so much at odds with their assumptions about the United States. Remember that the one thing countless millions of people around the world 'know' about the United States is that it is controlled by a cabal of white bankers and Jews who use police with fire hoses to repress blacks. To them, Mr. Obama's rise triggers severe cognitive dissonance. 'It's an anomaly, so contrary to their expectation that it makes them receptive to a new paradigm for the U.S.,' Mr. Kull said."

Oh, it triggers a severe cognitive dissonance in Americans too, but I think in a good way. I hope in a good way.

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Inter-Media-ate

The Daily Show, as usual, had a great segment, this time, on Sarah Palin's wardrobe. But even better was the Who the F@#k is that guy segment. How do they do it? Is some poor Daily Show intern tied to a tv set 24 hours a day?

For those of us who are Poll-Fretters (and you know who you are) the recent AP poll showing McCain only 1 point away from Obama nationally is cause for a little more than minor consternation. But fear not, our intrepid poll analysts have the answer: "The problem? In 2004, evangelicals/born-again Christians made up 23% of voters. But that same group makes up 44% of likely voters in AP's poll released today. That's almost double the number - it's totally implausible."

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12 days to the election! We are now only TWO WEEKS from the Election!

Set your Tivo, Meet the Press' guest this Sunday morning, will John McCain.

Undecideds, whoever the heck you are, in case you missed our earlier comparison of the candidates positions on a wide range of issues, the Congressional Quarterly has also compiled a side-by-side look at McCain and Obama's stances.

CONTINUE READING...

MedicAlert

Speaking of shady, Lawrence Altman of the NY Times asks today, what's the deal with McCain's medical records?: "If elected, Senator John McCain of Arizona, 72, the Republican nominee, would be the oldest man to be sworn in to a first term as president and the first cancer survivor to win the office. The scars on his puffy left cheek are cosmetic reminders of the extensive surgery he underwent in 2000 to remove a malignant melanoma. Last May, his campaign and his doctors released nearly 1,200 pages of medical information, far more than the three other nominees. But the documents were released in a restricted way that leaves questions, even confusion, about his cancer."

Sanjay Gupta, medical correspondent for CNN, points out on HuffPo that McCain is not the first cancer survivor to run for President: ""[Former Senator] Paul Tsongas -- when he ran for office in 1992, he was a cancer survivor at that point, but said he had been cured," recalled Gupta. "We now know that had he been elected to a second term, he would have died in office."

Andrew Tanenbaum, the Votemaster at Electoral-Vote.com (and inventor of the first open source code based on UNIX) also observed that "As increasingly few voters remember, on Saturday, Sept. 24, 1955, President Eisenhower had a heart attack. On Monday, Sept. 26, 1955, the stock market lost $14 billion, the largest one-day loss ever to that date on a volume of 7.7 million shares, the highest volume since July 1933."

By the way, Sarah Palin hasn't released ANY medical records at all. Could it be because her records for this year don't show her receiving any prenatal care from January to April?

SEVEN MONTHS PREGNANT. I'm just sayin'...

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Ground Control to Major Tom

Over the last few days, voters across the nation have gotten "the call" from John McCain-- no, not asking them to serve as McCain's VP pick, though Lord knows he needs a new one. The one informing them that you "need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans." Lovely. There's also another one that tries to hit on the old "Obama is a Hollywood celebrity" idea. Do we have to have Paris Hilton make yet another video, John??? Now it comes out that McCain is using Feather, Hodges, Larson & Synhorst to make those calls, the same firm for robo-calling that was used AGAINST him in 2004. HuffPo has a good roundup of links here, including one in which McCain condemns the robo-call practice.

Another article on the cell phone phenomenon and how the opinions of younger voters wind up being underplayed in national polls as a result. "According to the estimates compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, by the last six months of 2007, 14.5 percent of all adults were living in households that could only be reached by a cell phone, a number that had more than tripled (from 4.4 percent) since 2004. Younger Americans especially are out of reach. Mining the same NCHS study, the Pew Research Center reports that nearly a third (30.6 percent) of 18-to-24-year-olds can be reached only by cell phone....A few weeks ago, blogger Nate Silver compared the house effects of national polls that have been interviewing by cell phone with those that have not. He found that including cell phone interviews appeared to improve Obama's standing by 2 to 3 percentage points on the margin."

Before you even start to get upset about the poll numbers tightening, "That's what happens at the end of campaigns," Obama said on the Today Show this morning. "Even when there are substantial leads. And in each of these battleground states, you've got a lot of close races. One of the messages that I've had to my team is that we don't let up. We do not let up."

And Joe Biden echoes his running mate's thoughts: "Anyone who tells you this election is already decided is dead wrong. Let's not forget the 2000 election, when Al Gore was up by double digits in October. The surest way to lose a race is to slow down with the finish line in sight. We're taking no chances. We've planned the biggest get out the vote operation in history, and we need to make sure that every voter has their voice heard."

Joe's right, although a look at that 2004 Electoral vote graph show also how tight and how volatile that race was. Not that I'm sayin' we should get cocky, but this year, Obama the majority of the time with a lead over McCain.

2004:

2008:

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Policy: Where do you get the Energy?

So I've been trying to get to Energy policy for week now. But I'm a bit caught up on other things in life (just barely) so here we go. I'm going to try to fit in the last looks at policy in the last few day before the final debate! (Assuming McCain even cares to talk policy at the next debate.) In case you're interested,

Much of the following is taken from candidate websites: Barackobama.com and JohnMcCain.com. Also you can get more info at the NY Times' site.

OIL AND NATURAL GAS

Obama:

• Wants to eliminate our current imports from the Middle East and Venezuela within 10 years
  
• Prioritize the Construction of the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline. Obama will work with stakeholders to facilitate construction of the pipeline. Not only is this pipeline critical to our energy security, it will create thousands of new jobs.
• Swap Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Cut Prices. With oil prices doubling in the past year, Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we have an economic emergency that requires a limited, responsible swap of light oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) for heavy crude oil to help bring down prices at the pump.
• A "Use it or Lose It" Approach to Existing Oil and Gas Leases. Obama and Biden will require oil companies to develop the 68 million acres of land (over 40 million of which are offshore) which they have already leased and are not drilling on.
• Oppose drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and lifting the federal ban on new offshore oil exploration.
• Establish a process for early identification of any infrastructure obstacles/shortages or possible federal permitting process delays to drilling in the Bakken Shale formation, the Barnett shale formation, and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
• Enact a Windfall Profits Tax on excessive oil company profits to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families. Would use some of the money to pay for his middle-class tax cut, for people earning less than $75,000 a year, and for eliminating federal income taxes on elderly citizens who make less than $50,000 a year.
• Crack Down on Excessive Energy Speculation. Obama and Biden will close energy industry market loopholes and increase transparency to prevent traders from unfairly lining their pockets, while driving up oil prices at the expense of the American people.

McCain:

• Lift the current federal moratorium on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, which stands in the way of energy exploration and production. We have trillions of dollars worth of oil and gas reserves in the U.S. at a time we are exporting hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas to buy energy.
• Keep more of our dollars here in the U.S., lessen our foreign dependency, increase our domestic supplies, and reduce our trade deficit - 41% of which is due to oil imports. John McCain proposes to cooperate with the states and the Department of Defense in the decisions to develop these resources.
• Promote and expand the use of our domestic supplies of natural gas. Within the United States we have tremendous reserves of natural gas. The Outer Continental Shelf alone contains 77 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.
• Supported the ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 2000. Sarah Palin does not support the ban.
  
• Reform the laws and regulations governing the oil futures market, so that they are just as clear and effective as the rules applied to stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments. Congress already has investigations underway to examine this kind of wagering in our energy markets, unrelated to any kind of productive commerce, because it can distort the market, drive prices beyond rational limits, and put the investments and pensions of millions of Americans at risk.
  
• Does not support a windfall profits tax. A windfall profits tax on the oil companies will ultimately result in increasing our dependence on foreign oil and hinder investment in domestic exploration.
  

CLEAN COAL

Clean coal is an oxymoronic umbrella term used in the promotion of the use of coal as an energy source by emphasizing methods being developed to reduce its environmental impact. These efforts include chemically washing minerals and impurities from the coal, gasification (see also IGCC), treating the flue gases with steam to remove sulfur dioxide, and carbon capture and storage technologies to capture the carbon dioxide from the flue gas. These methods and the technology used are described as clean coal technology. Major politicians and the coal industry use the term "clean coal" to describe technologies designed to enhance both the efficiency and the environmental acceptability of coal extraction, preparation and use,[1] with no specific quantitative limits on any emissions, particularly carbon dioxide.

Obama:

• Enter into public private partnerships to develop five "first-of-a-kind" commercial scale coal-fired plants with clean carbon capture and sequestration technology.
• Would consider banning new coal plants without "clean coal" technologies.
  
• Sponsored a bill with subsidies for development of liquid coal but later said he would support subsidies only if the fuel could be produced with 20 percent lower emissions than gasoline.

McCain:

• Commit $2 Billion Annually To Advancing Clean Coal Technologies. Coal produces the majority of our electricity today. Some believe that marketing viable clean coal technologies could be over 15 years away. John McCain believes that this is too long to wait, and we need to commit significant federal resources to the science, research and development that advance this critical technology. Once commercialized, the U.S. can then export these technologies to countries like China that are committed to using their coal - creating new American jobs and allowing the U.S. to play a greater role in the international green economy. Says coal-to-liquid may be viable if carbon capture and pollution control technology advances.

NUCLEAR POWER

Obama:

• Cites cost and safety concerns, but has not ruled out nuclear power as part of the energy mix.

McCain:

• Construct 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 with the goal of eventually constructing 100 new plants. Nuclear power is a proven, zero-emission source of energy, and it is time we recommit to advancing our use of nuclear power. Currently, nuclear power produces 20% of our power, but the U.S. has not started construction on a new nuclear power plant in over 30 years. China, India and Russia have goals of building a combined total of over 100 new plants and we should be able to do the same.
  

ETHANOL, BIOFUELS, WIND, SOLAR

Obama:

• Support a goal of 20% renewable energy by 2020. We have vast potential in this country to produce clean renewable energy and reduce our reliance on dwindling domestic natural gas reserves. The investment certainty provided by a significant RPS will encourage innovation, bring down the costs of renewable power, encourage necessary investment in new transmission, inspire new domestic industries, and strengthen rural economies.
• Set benchmarks for production so that more companies will invest in production and create distribution facilities where the average consumer can access biofuels for cars designed to run on them.
  
• Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.

• 

  Would require 60 billion gallons of biofuels to be produced in the U.S. each year by 2030.
• Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.Create the 5-E (Energy Efficiency, Environmental Education and Employment) Disconnected Youth Service Corps. This program will directly engage disconnected and disadvantaged youth in energy efficiency and environmental service opportunities to strengthen their communities while also providing them with practical skills and experience in important career fields of expected high-growth employment. The program will engage private sector employers and unions to provide apprenticeship opportunities.
• Devote significant resources from a permit auction toward accelerating the development and deployment of low carbon technologies and addressing the economic challenges imposed on key industrial sectors.

McCain:

• Issue a Clean Car Challenge to the automakers of America, in the form of a single and $5,000 tax credit for each and every customer who buys a zero carbon emission car, encouraging automakers to be first on the market with these cars in order to capitalize on the consumer incentives. For other vehicles, a graduated tax credit will apply so that the lower the carbon emissions, the higher the tax credit.
• Establish a $300 million prize should be awarded for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars. That battery should deliver a power source at 30 percent of the current costs.
• Call on automakers to make a more rapid and complete switch to Flex Fuel Vehicles. American automakers have committed to make 50 percent of their cars FFVs by 2012.
• Believes alcohol-based fuels hold great promise as both an alternative to gasoline and as a means of expanding consumers' choices.
• Eliminate mandates, subsidies, tariffs and price supports that focus exclusively on corn-based ethanol and prevent the development of market-based solutions which would provide us with better options for our fuel needs.
• Effectively Enforce Existing CAFE Standards--the mileage requirements that automobile manufacturers' cars must meet. Some carmakers ignore these standards, pay a small financial penalty, and add it to the price of their cars.


• Establish a permanent tax credit equal to 10 percent of wages spent on R&D. A permanent credit will provide an incentive to innovate and remove uncertainty. At a time when our companies need to be more competitive, we need to provide a permanent incentive to innovate, and remove the uncertainty now hanging over businesses as they make R&D investment decisions.
• Encourage the market for alternative, low carbon fuels such as wind, hydro and solar power with an even-handed system of tax credits that will remain in place until the market transforms sufficiently to the point where renewable energy no longer merits the taxpayers' dollars. According to the Department of Energy, wind could provide as much as one-fifth of electricity by 2030. The U.S. solar energy industry continued its double-digit annual growth rate in 2006. To develop these and other sources of renewable energy will require that we rationalize the current patchwork of temporary tax credits that provide commercial feasibility.
  

GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

What is Cap-and-Trade?

A cap-and-trade system harnesses human ingenuity in the pursuit of alternatives to carbon-based fuels. Market participants are allotted total permits equal to the cap on greenhouse gas emissions. If they can invent, improve, or acquire a way to reduce their emissions, they can sell their extra permits for cash. The profit motive will coordinate the efforts of venture capitalists, corporate planners, entrepreneurs, and environmentalists on the common motive of reducing emissions.

Obama:

• Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.The Obama-Biden cap-and-trade policy will require all pollution credits to be auctioned, and proceeds will go to investments in a clean energy future, habitat protections, and rebates and other transition relief for families.
• Increase fuel efficiency standards by 4% per year while providing $4 billion for domestic automakers to retool their manufacturing facilities in America to produce these vehicles.
• Create a new $7,000 tax credit for purchasing advanced vehicles.

• 

  Lift the 60,000-per-manufacturer cap on buyer tax credits to encourage more Americans to buy ultra-efficient vehicles, and encourage automakers to make fuel efficient hybrid vehicles.
  
• Offer domestic automakers either assistance shouldering their health care legacy costs in exchange for investing 50 percent of the savings into technology to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles or generous tax incentives for retooling assembly plants.
• Put 1 million plug-in hybrid cars -- cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon -- on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America.
• Establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard to reduce the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of passenger vehicle fuels sold in the U.S. by 10 percent in 2020 and require additional reductions of 1% annually thereafter.
• Weatherize one million homes annually. Obama and Biden will make a national commitment to weatherize at least one million low-income homes each year for the next decade, which can reduce energy usage across the economy and help moderate energy prices for all.
• Set an aggressive energy efficiency goal -- to reduce electricity demand 15 percent from projected levels by 2020.
• Re-engage with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) -- the main international forum dedicated to addressing the climate problem. They will also create a Global Energy Forum of the world's largest emitters to focus exclusively on global energy and environmental issues.

McCain:

• "Green" the federal government. The federal government is the largest electricity consumer on earth and occupies 3.3 billion square feet of space worldwide. By applying a higher efficiency standard to new buildings leased or purchased or retrofitting existing buildings, we can save taxpayers substantial money in energy costs, and move the construction market in the direction of green technology.
• Move the United States toward electricity grid and metering improvements to save energy. John McCain will work to reduce red tape to allow a serious investment to upgrade our national grid to meet the demands of the 21st century - which will include a capacity to charge the electric cars that will one day fill the roads and highways of America. And to save both money and electrical power for our people and businesses, we will also need to deploy SmartMeter technologies. These new meters give customers a more precise picture of their overall energy consumption, and over time will encourage a more cost-efficient use of power.
• Establish a Cap-And-Trade System that would set limits on greenhouse gas emissions while encouraging the development of low-cost compliance options. A climate cap-and-trade mechanism would set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions and allow entities to buy and sell rights to emit, similar to the successful acid rain trading program of the early 1990s. The key feature of this mechanism is that it allows the market to decide and encourage the lowest-cost compliance options. The cap-and-trade system would encompass electric power, transportation fuels, commercial business, and industrial business - sectors responsible for just under 90 percent of all emissions. Small businesses would be exempt. Initially, participants would be allowed to either make their own GHG reductions or purchase "offsets" - financial instruments representing a reduction, avoidance, or sequestration of greenhouse gas emissions practiced by other activities, such as agriculture - to cover 100 percent of their required reductions. Offsets would only be available through a program dedicated to ensure that all offset GHG emission reductions are real, measured and verifiable. The fraction of GHG emission reductions permitted via offsets would decline over time.
• Greenhouse Gas Emission Targets And Timetables:
• 2012: Return Emissions To 2005 Levels (18 Percent Above 1990 Levels)
• 2020: Return Emissions To 1990 Levels (15 Percent Below 2005 Levels)
  
• 2030: 22 Percent Below 1990 Levels (34 Percent Below 2005 Levels)
  
• 2050: 60 Percent Below 1990 Levels (66 Percent Below 2005 Levels)
  

Obama's Policy Speech in Lansing in August 2008 on Energy Policy.

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Moving in on GOP Turf

Anyhow, enough rambling. Onto the Conservative pundits who have come over to the Dark Side.

David Brooks on Obama: "Obama has the great intellect. I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and I'm getting nowhere with the interview, it's late in the night, he's on the phone, walking off the Senate floor, he's cranky. Out of the blue I say, 'Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?' And he says, 'Yeah.' So i say, 'What did Niebuhr mean to you?' For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.

And the other thing that does separate Obama from just a pure intellectual: he has tremendous powers of social perception. And this is why he's a politician, not an academic. A couple of years ago, I was writing columns attacking the Republican congress for spending too much money. And I throw in a few sentences attacking the Democrats to make myself feel better. And one morning I get an email from Obama saying, 'David, if you wanna attack us, fine, but you're only throwing in those sentences to make yourself feel better.' And it was a perfect description of what was going through my mind. And everybody who knows Obama all have these stories to tell about his capacity for social perception.

George Will: But the McCain-Palin charges have come just as the Obama campaign is benefiting from a mass mailing it is not paying for. Many millions of American households are gingerly opening envelopes containing reports of the third-quarter losses in their 401(k) and other retirement accounts -- telling each household its portion of the nearly $2 trillion that Americans' accounts have recently shed. In this context, the McCain-Palin campaign's attempt to get Americans to focus on Obama's Chicago associations seem surreal -- or, as a British politician once said about criticism he was receiving, "like being savaged by a dead sheep."

Moving in on GOP Turf
Joe Biden returned to the campaign trail on Wednesday in Tampa, Florida: ''To have the vice presidential candidate raise the most outrageous inferences, the one John McCain's campaign is condoning, is simply wrong,'' Biden told roughly 4,000 people at the University of South Florida. ``They are attacking Barack Obama in the ugliest of ways. This is beyond disappointing. This is wrong.'' By Thursday he was in Missouri and on a roll.

Meanwhile, Obama was in Indianapolis at an Indiana rally, "We meet at a moment of great uncertainty for America," he said. "But this isn't a time for fear or panic. This is a time for resolve and leadership. I know that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis." By Thursday Obama was in Portsmouth, Ohio.

See how that works? Florida, Missouri, Indiana, and Ohio. "Landslide," Democrats. Dare to dream.

NPR ran an interesting piece yesterday morning on how Obama is doing in Indiana: "At an outdoor rally, he had the crowd roaring with this closer: 'If you will stand with me, if you will work with me, if you will vote for me in 27 days, I promise you we will not just win Indiana, we will win this general election.' Behind that speech is a media and ground operation that has astonished Indiana politicos. It's a prime example of how this presidential campaign is changing America's political landscape. In 2004, President Bush and Democratic Sen. John Kerry didn't spend a penny on TV advertising in Indiana. No one doubted that the state would go Republican. But right now, Indiana is barely tilting toward Sen. John McCain. Obama is outspending McCain on television there by a margin of 20-to-1.Numbers like those, in Indiana and some other once-solid Republican states, seem to confirm Obama's judgment in rejecting public financing. The decision cost the Illinois senator an $84 million grant from the government, meaning he has to keep on raising money. But if he had taken the money — as McCain did — he could not spend anything beyond that. Instead, with a fundraising network that set records throughout the primaries, Obama's financial picture easily eclipses McCain's."

McCain, for his part, just can't seem to get himself in the zone. Where is he? Pennsylvania. Yah. Um, good luck with taking that state. Obama's at, what, 52%, and you're at 39%? So on Wednesday at this rally at Lehigh University in Bethlehem with Sarah Palin, he apparently called all of us "my fellow prisoners" instead of his prepared text, which was "my fellow citizens."

Sen. McCain, let me explain the concept of YouTube to you AGAIN. You see that number on the bottom next to the word "Views"? Yeah, that means that nearly 30,000 people have seen this gaffe of yours within the first eight hours, by Thursday morning 378,000 people had seen it. I check at 11 pm on Thursday and 558,000 people have viewed the clip. And see that little blue square with the "f" on it? I click on that, post it to my Facebook page and instantly the number of views goes up. Did you know that in Pennsylvania, during the primaries you won 587,000 votes? So it's kinda like, oh, if everyone who voted for you in the Republican PA primaries logged on to see that.

Maybe ask Paris Hilton for some tips-- she OBVIOUSLY has a better grasp on things than you do. Paris is back in a HIGH-larious video with Martin Sheen, the former President Josiah Bartlett on the West Wing. Paris: "I plan to bring a fake balance approach to these real problems. For example, Fo-Po." Sheen: "What is Fo-Po?" "Foreign Policy, silly!" "Of course BF! I should have known that one." Man, remember Bartlett for America? Uh-oh, I'm getting fahrklempt again.... Talk amongst yourselves...

By the way, speaking of media savvy, Obama has purchased a HALF-HOUR of airtime on CBS, NBC, and MSNBC (ironically this was reported on ABC)."The bold buy, first reported by the Hollywood Reporter and featured on the Drudge Report, will put the Obama show uninterrupted to American television sets across the country less than one week before election day. The Obama camp remains in talks with other networks to do the same on other channels." So, we have something to look forward to--kinda like Halloween candy. A half-hour primetime special on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 8 pm. Mark your calendars!

Okay, I feel a little better now. So, HuffPo reports on the Obama transition team. While it might be perceived as arrogance, most candidates start directing a transition team as they get closer to the election. It means you don't waste time after winning the election -- you just smoothly put your operation into place. "It may or may not reflect the internal state of the campaigns' thinking, but Obama has a large, well-staffed operation going on to prepare for the presidency. As the 2008 campaign nears its conclusion, the presidential transition efforts of the two major candidates have become a study in contrasts: Sen. Barack Obama has organized an elaborate well-staffed network to prepare for his possible ascension to the White House, while Sen. John McCain has all but put off such work until after the election. The Democratic nominee has enlisted the assistance of dozens of individuals -- divided into working groups for particular federal agencies -- to produce policy agendas and lists of recommended appointees." Well, I guess, the McCain thinking goes, why waste the energy if you're not going to win.

Organization. I love order and organization. So sue me. Remember the Democratic Convention, and how well orchestrated it was? And how absurdly amateur the RNC looked like by comparison? Four days in Denver, behind the scenes in DNC.

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Sarah Palin Humor Break

Since Sarah Palin joined this race, I've become obsessed with folksy sayin's. Y'know, like, "If ya put all her brains in a thimble, it'd rattle around like a b.b. in a boxcar." That's Eric's favorite.

Here's a fun little flowchart that Helene sent along. This pretty much describes the entire Sarah Palin Debate strategy...

And thanks to Dina for sending this little gem along -- someone has actually--ACTUALLY--attempted to diagram Sarah Palin's sentences, and lived to tell the tale. Oh, how proud my 8th grade English teacher would be.

The Race Card

From the New Yorker's panel discussion on "If I Ran the Campaign," former campaign strategists Ed Rollins, Alex Castellanos, and Donna Brazile offered their takes on this year's campaigns. "Toobin raised the specter of race in the campaign, and Brazile, 48, let loose with an impassioned, ad-libbed exhortation that could be seen as a prescient, preemptive strike to the race-and-religion baiting tactics ("strategies"?) employed by the increasingly-ugly McCain-Palin campaign. Donna's remarks in the link above; you can watch the entire video here."

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Square Deal

"Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing, and commonsense.... We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less...The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us."

---Theodore Roosevelt

Yes, my weary fellow-travelers, we have now survived three debates. I feel like each time I burn out neurons and my ulcer gets bigger.

"Stop watching that stuff," Eric shouts from the back room (where he himself has been listening in the the CNN post-debate blather), "It's going to ROT YOUR BRAIN."

I can't help myself though. I'm addicted. Can we just vote? Everyone? Right now? Call today Election Day and have DONE with it?

First off, in case you missed it, the evening's choicest tidbits from Politico, a video-transcript from the NY Times, full video from C-Span and the text transcript from CNN.

And the liveblogged factcheck from: the AP, ABC News, MSNBC, and the Washington Post and Barack Obama's website.

Plays Well With Others.

Sometimes I wonder if I even know what I think until someone tells me what I think that I think. Word from the instapolls:

• NBC's focus group of undecided Pennsylvania voters had the Illinois Democrat winning by roughly a 60-40 split.
  
• Frank Luntz's focus group, over at Fox, showed undecided voters leaning towards Obama because of his position on health care.
  
• CBS's focus group of independents had the Democratic nominee winning the debate at 39 percent to McCain's 27 percent, with 35 percent of the respondents saying it was a tie.
  
• Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a Democratic polling firm, had a focus group of undecideds leaning to Obama by a margin of 42 percent to 24 percent. "Before the debate, McCain had a 48/46 favorability rating; that improved to 56/36 by the end. But that's about where Obama started the evening—54/36. After an hour and a half, Obama's favorability numbers were 80/14. As Joe Biden would say, let me repeat that: 80% of the undecided voters had favorable views of Obama and only 14% saw him negatively for a net rating of +66. Not even Bill Clinton got such a warm response in town hall formats."
• Meanwhile, SurveyUSA interviewed 741 debate watchers in the state of Washington, 54 percent of whom thought Obama was the "clear winner" compared with McCain's 29 percent. That same polling firm had the first debate as a tie. In tonight's survey: 42 percent of respondents said McCain was too forceful.
  
• And the CNN focus group of undecided voters in Ohio had the margin at an even wider spread: Obama 54 percent to McCain's 30.

Reaction:
Andrew Sullivan (The Atlantic): "This was, I think, a mauling: a devastating and possibly electorally fatal debate for McCain... All I can say is that, simply on terms of substance, clarity, empathy, style and authority, this has not just been an Obama victory. It has been a wipe-out."

Will Wilkinson: "Gut read. Obama owned it. This election's over unless he murders and eats the flesh of a child on live television."

Ron Dreher (Crunchy Conservative): "Nothing McCain did tonight changed a thing. He's done. This race is now the 2008 version of Clinton vs. Dole. And you know how well that turned out for the Republicans."

Andrew McCarthy (National Review): "We have a disaster here -- which is what you should expect when you delegate a non-conservative to make the conservative (nay, the American) case. We can parse it eight ways to Sunday, but I think the commentary is missing the big picture... "

Ross Douthat (The Atlantic): "Obama was unruffled and consistent - change vs. more of the same, change vs. more of the same, rinse and repeat - and for whatever it's worth the physical and generational contrast between the two men was very striking in this setting, and especially in the early going McCain seemed to me be showing his age as he delivered his answers. He improved as the night went on, but the vigor gap was palpable."

PoliticalWire.com: "Tonight's debate wasn't even close. Sen. Barack Obama ran away with it -- particularly when speaking about the economy and health care. Talking about his mother's death from cancer was very powerful. On nearly every issue, Obama was more substantive, showed more compassion and was more presidential."

And 23/6 offers this darkly humorous observation: "John, it this really how you want to go out? Calling Obama a terrorist behind his back and a "one" to his face? You've come this far without snapping, but you're turning into Grandpa at Christmas dinner. You don't like how any of the grandkids turned out, your dentures hurt and you're two scotches away from calling Grandma a slut."

The NY Times weighed in with an "ow-ee" editorial this morning. "It is a sorry fact of American political life that campaigns get ugly, often in their final weeks. But Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have been running one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember.They have gone far beyond the usual fare of quotes taken out of context and distortions of an opponent's record — into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia. Senator Barack Obama has taken some cheap shots at Mr. McCain, but there is no comparison...We certainly expected better from Mr. McCain, who once showed withering contempt for win-at-any-cost politics. He was driven out of the 2000 Republican primaries by this sort of smear, orchestrated by some of the same people who are now running his campaign." Well, it is that bastion of Liberal trash -- so what have they got to lose by calling a spade a spade?

Here's my take (not that I'm so much more insightful than everyone else above): McCain came off as flippant, IMHO, unserious, and yes, at times, he sounded nasty to me, especially the little side cracks to Tom Brokaw and the hair transplant thing. He blustered, and gave his words dramatic overtones, but ultimately looked just graceless, both physically and temperamentally. Everyone kept saying this "town hall" format was McCain's metier, but honestly, I thought he looked like a non-dancing guy told to move across the stage in a ballet, (Michael Crowley at the National Review agrees) while Obama looked comfortable, and more importantly, really seemed to be listening both to the questioners and to his opponent. Maybe this town hall thing works well for McCain if the audience is in the same room, but on TV, it had shades of Nixon vs. Kennedy.

Body Language
Oh look -- he actually looked at him! Well I guess that's better than the chilly glare and "Get Away from Me" look Obama got when he crossed the aisle in the Senate to offer a handshake to McCain last week.

But really now, is McCain not able to rise above his personal dislike of Obama? Wolf Blitzer at CNN observed: "It's apparent to say that Sen. McCain has some disdain, I think it's fair to say, for Sen. Obama. That was very apparent throughout the course of this debate."

Swipes?
Was that hair transplant thing a swipe at Joe Biden? The man just put his mother-in-law in the ground--lay off him, Johnny Mac.

McCain: "Really the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I'll bet you, you may never even have heard of them before this crisis." Um, actually pretty much anyone with a mortgage has heard of them, you condescending blatherer.

McCain: "You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one. You know who voted against it? Me."

Zingers
I liked this moment that HuffPo points out too:" In their first debate, John McCain's constant refrain was that Barack Obama "didn't understand." Tonight, Obama grabbed that phrase and ran with it in the other direction, prefacing his remarks on how the economic downturn would affect our foreign policy goals by saying, "Senator McCain, in the last debate and again today suggested that I don't understand. It's true. There are some things I don't understand. I don't understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11."

Obama nailed McCain about singing "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran." McCain responds that he was just "joking with an old veteran friend..." Yeah, um, too bad it's on YouTube and too bad it shows you making that crack at a large public gathering.

Tom Brokaw: At the end of the debate, Brokaw asked McCain to get out of the way of his Teleprompter, so he could sign off. A waggish Arianna Huffington cracks: "Brokaw might as well have been speaking on behalf of the future: Senator McCain can you please get out of the way so we can get on with it?"

Who is Barack Obama?
I think we know the answer to McCain's Ayn Rand-styled question now. The Caucus notes that after the debate, "Mr. McCain shook hands with several audience members and then left fairly quickly. Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, stuck around to shake far more hands, pose for pictures, sign autographs, and answer more questions, including from people who had been on stage but did not get a chance to ask their questions. Only when Secret Service agents told them it was time to go did the couple leave." Well, he is the biggest celebrity in the world.

Obama even had time to show up to Al Gore's fundraiser right after the debate. I guess John had to get home to get to bed early.

============================

Georgia on My Mind

So McCain has been hawkish about Russia for, lo, these many weeks, but Andrew Sullivan points us to some interesting background on McCain and his personal relationship with Georgia's president Saakashvili. How did I miss this? Was McCain involved in egging on Saakashvili in this ill-advised tweaking of Russia's nose??? From Newsweek last August: "Mikheil Saakashvili, his eyes bloodshot from sleeplessness and his face caked with television makeup, summoned his closest advisers into his office above Tbilisi's Old City. It was 2 a.m. on Aug. 12, and columns of Russian tanks were rolling down the highway toward the Georgian capital. "I am never going to flee," the president told his team. "I will not live my life regretting that I abandoned my own country at war." Then he sent them home to change out of their suits and ties so they could fight the invaders. Swigging a can of Red Bull, Saakashvili grabbed a phone and called the trusted friend and mentor he had turned to every night since Aug. 8, when the war began: John McCain. A source close to the Republican standard-bearer, asking not to be named discussing a private conversation, says McCain voiced support for diplomatic and political pressure against Moscow. "Hang in there," the senator said, according to a Saakashvili aide on condition of anonymity. "We are not going to let this happen … We are doing everything we can to stop this aggression."

============================

Square Deal

During the debate McCain reached back in history to reference Teddy Roosevelt, whom he said was his "hero." (He also mentioned Hoover, which I think takes him on dangerous ground-- "Wait, were you and Herbert Hoover drinking buddies, John?") Anyway, Teddy Roosevelt. That's nice, John, I didn't know you were such a Progressive. You know, while you're looking for Teddy Roosevelt quotes, you might want to check into the Rough Rider's "Square Deal" plan too.

It is all-essential to the continuance of our healthy national life that we should recognize this community of interest among our people. The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us, and therefore in public life that man is the best representative of each of us who seeks to do good to each by doing good to all; in other words, whose endeavor it is not to represent any special class and promote merely that class's selfish interests, but to represent all true and honest men of all sections and all classes and to work for their interests by working for our common country.

Hmmmm, sounds a little bit like someone else I know... "For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga, a belief that we are all connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent.If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It is that fundamental belief -- it is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper -- that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family: "E pluribus unum," out of many, one."

By the way, John, Teddy Roosevelt also said this: "Working women have the same need to protection that working men have; the ballot is as necessary for one class as to the other; we do not believe that with the two sexes there is identity of function; but we do believe there should be equality of right." Ted Kennedy and I will be checking in with you on "Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act," Sen. McCain. You should show up to vote this time.

Oh, and note to Sen McCain? Stop peppering every rhetorical moment with the phrase "my friends." In case you haven't noticed, I am not your friend. Even if I didn't take a drink every time you uttered the phrase, I'd still be barfing by the end of the night.

===========================

Statistical significance: Obama's Gallup Daily lead has expanded to 11 points today. I know, I know, I'm still skeptical about polls. Frankly I think Obama's actual lead is MUCH bigger than even pollsters are measuring. I admit though, I do like to see all the little charts on former McCain states with the red line going down and the blue line going up. North Carolina. Virginia. Ohio. Florida. Warms the cockles of my heart. Whatever those are.

Clock is ticking...Only 27 days to the election, people!

RockTheVote's list of voter registration deadlines. Here are some upcoming dates--forward this on to your friends in the appropriate states (swing states in bold).

• Wednesday, Oct 8: Missouri
• Friday, Oct 10: New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma
  
• Saturday, Oct 11: Delaware
  
• Tuesday, Oct 14: Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon
  
• Wednesday, Oct 15: Massachusetts, West Virginia, Wisconsin

Also don't forget to check Project Vote, which lists the names and addresses of purged voters in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas (so far). If you live in one of these states, check the list TODAY to see if you have been purged and also check for friends, relatives, and neighbors." If you find yourself or someone you know on one of these lists, they may be able to protest being removed from the rolls.

If you're voting absentee, you may have to get your ballot in weeks before the Nov 4th Election date. Declare Yourself has links to each state's voter information page where you can find out how to get your absentee ballot.

And again, in many states, you may vote EARLY, before Nov 4, to avoid the long lines (Ohio, your early voting week is over). Reed College has compiled lists of which states offer early voting/absentee balloting options.

* * *
And since Katie mentioned overseas friends, I do want note that U.S. citizens residing abroad can still vote! If you know US citizens abroad, folks in the active military, paople working for the State Department -- YES, they CAN vote. Forward them the link to the Overseas Vote Foundation.

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