Liam

I think the issue is only relevant in two ways: 1. it opens the discussion about the extent to which Palin's entire public persona has been stage crafted by the campaign 2. it speaks against her authenticity as an ordinary hockey mom. I heard that the highest paid staffer on the McCain campaign in the first two weeks of October was Palin's makeup artist. $22k over two weeks. Astounding if true. I'm sure the campaign could have extended her a $10,000 allowance at Macy's where she could have bought herself 10-15 very nice suits and many pairs of shoes, etc. It would be completely understandable to give someone who does not have a massive walk-in closet of suits a clothing allowance before going out in front of the media (oops, she never did that! LOL) and in front of crowds. She would look just as professional as she does in the Valentino stuff they got at Nieman Marcus. Not everyone can be Cindy McCain.

So, let's play a parlor game: if Obama loses, who do you think the odds-on favorite for the next Dem nomination will be? Same with the GOP, if McCan loses, who has the inside track on 2012? My picks: Hillary Clinton for the Dems, Newt Gingrich for the GOP. Biden and Palin will be toast. No chance for either, IMO.

Once you register, you remain registered in that district provided you keep voting. I think if you go three election cycles (6 years) without casting a ballot, some districts can purge you from their voter rolls. If you move to a new address within the same congressional district, you need only update your address. If you move to a new congressional district or state, you need to register anew in that new location.

1. Voter registration is a big issue because there's a history of voter fraud in the US (party politicians registering names from the cemetary and having people show up at the polls multiple times to swing elections, etc.). 2. Public registration by party identity is not required. For example, I am officially "unenrolled" meaning I am registered to vote but am not an official member of any political party. (I don't call it "independent" because there is an Independent Party in some states.) The only benefit to being unenrolled is that I can vote in any party's primaries in my state. Massachusetts is a semi-closed primary state, meaning that (for exmaple) registered Republicans can only vote among the Republican candidates on primary day. In my case, I can vote on any party's slate of candidates -- on primary day I am able to select which party's ballot I would like to vote on. When it comes to the general election (Nov 4), party affiliation does not matter. You can vote for anyone and can change your mind up to the point of entering your vote. Party affiliation trends are only noteworthy this year because they are a measure of the public's inclination as the general election date approaches. 3. Voter registration is not automatic because the US has a fairly libertarian streak in it -- there are very few government services in in the US where people are automatically enrolled. As with a driver's license, you have to make the effort to get yourself registered to vote, which I actually prefer.

No, the lender is not making any investment in the borrower. The lender is making the sale and doesn't care if the borrower can pay it back, because the initial lender only holds the loan for a few weeks until it is bundled with a bunch of other mortgages and sold to banks or other institutions. Now, if there are shady lending tactics (showing someone a certain rate but burying a different rate among the loan papers, or showing payback schedules that do not account for adjustments to monthly installments), ONLY THEN is the lender at fault. Ultimately, the borrower has to take responsibility for living beyond his means. Someone looking to borrow in the hundreds of thousands of dollars ought to be held accountable for doing even the most rudimentary homework on the terms of a loan and determining whether or not he can afford to pay it off.

Personally, I think there were three big culprits to the current crisis: 1. mortgage lenders who extended credit to everyone and anyone and the financial markets who overvalued a lot of worthless paper; 2. government regulators who did nothing to monitor the extension of this credit or the market trading of these repackaged and rebundled mortgage-backed "assets"; and, the most guilty of all: 3. the average consumer who thought of his (rather illiquid) investment in his house as a liquid asset which reflected his actual wealth, making him think he was entitled to taking out a $500,000 mortgage when he only had $100,000 in income, making him think he could take out home equity lines forever, making him think he didn't need to do anything to save and making him think he could run up enormous credit card bills because his house (i.e., his net worth) was on a continuously upward trajectory. Cripes, just watch HGTV for an hour and you'll see nothing but granite countertops, wine fridges, enormous home expansions, spa-like pool installations -- our society has gone mad with trying to live a luxury life on the credit card.

I can understand why people are conservative from a fiscal standpoint (I tend to think of myself that way -- I'd prefer private sector solutions to certain problems, not all, but certain ones), but what kills the GOP for me each and every time is the social conservative wing of the party. From gay marriage amendments to Terri Schiavo to the "war on Christmas" and the "Obama = Osama" baloney and now their lashing out at anyone who fails a certain litmus test (or who happen to live in certain zip codes) as un-American, it just shows how utterly despicable they've become. I hope the GOP loses big-time this season. Not because I want undivided government, but because I think nothing short of an utter rout will teach the GOP to go back to its roots of limited government (both fiscal AND getting government out of peoples' private lives). Our country would be healthier if the GOP was what it once was.

My assumption, which could be completely wrong, is that what Biden meant by "generated" was "man made" as opposed to a natural disaster crisis. In other words, a military crisis or an economic crisis or a terrorist act or some other non-act-of-God crisis.

LOL, this post is so laughably predictable. Translation from Bidenese: "there will be a crisis during an Obama presidency and he's going to need the continued vocal support of his voters because his actions, while being the right and sensible ones, but will distorted by the GOP smear machine which will equate whatever he does with being a terrorist collaborator." Biden is speaking the truth. He didn't say Obama will need help in making his decisions. He said Obama will need the help of his key supporters in countering a reactionary GOP misinformation machine. Biden is right.

I think McCain started out with much more energy and fight in him than we had seen in the other two debates, but he faded as time wore on. The split screen was no friend to him later in the debate. The line about running against Bush was very well played. I have to admire Obama for keeping his cool throughout. I think his mission over the three debates was to allow the public to see him as the guy who could answer that 3 am call and I think he succeeded. McCain had his best debate performance last night (mostly due to the earliest 20-30 minutes) but it wasn't enough to turn the tide of the campaign. Unrelated, but if anyone wants to see both Obama and McCain in a more light-hearted setting, do a youtube search of them at tonight's Alfred E. Smith award dinner. Both did comedy pretty well (but I'd give the deft comedic touch award to McCain).

First, that's not sh_tting on the country. Second, if anything, it's telling a semi-truth about a certain kind of person we all know exists in this country. There are plenty of Archie Bunker types who feel left out of the country's prosperity, who have seen affirmative action take away jobs they assumed were their birth right. They most certainly cling on to antipathy towards people who are not like them (just tune into any McCain rally lately and you'll see 'em). And a certain number of those people do cling on to their old-time values (God, guns, whatever) because they are afraid of the future. Not all gun owners are that way and not all religious people are that way, but we all know that there are a number of people out there who fit the profile Obama laid out to a T.

Well said. By that I don't mean to agree that Shady is the most dishonest poster, I don't know. But I will take the point and agree that there is quite an enormous degree of intellectual dishonesty in Republican circles these days. (I guess I have to say "conservative circles" since, as a Canadian, Shady is not a member of the GOP.) I would challenge anyone to find me quotes, transcripts, youtube clips, whatever where Obama "sh_ts" on his country. Statements like that are boilerplate conservative B/S. America-hater. Commie. Pinko. Leftist. If you hold a contrarian position, you might as well be a member of Al Qaeda. Dissent, or the belief that America can do better, is not allowed. It's so sad that the philosophy of Buckley has become the breeding ground for such know-nothing thuggery.

I have no problem with people parsing language, provided it is correctly quoted. You can draw your conclusion and it may actually even be right, but I wanted to correct the notion (rampant in Republican circles) that Michelle Obama said she was never proud of her country. She did not say that.

No, she did not. Here is her quote in full: "What we have learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback. And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I've seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues, and it's made me proud."

You have the quote wrong. Had it been the way you wrote it, it wouldn't have been so bad, but what happened was McCain asked who voted a certain way on a bill and and something like, "would you believe I did [vote for the bill]? But do you know who didn't? That one." The use of "that one" is very reminiscent of my Irish mom and other women of her generation (around McCain's age) who use "that one" with a high degree of frustration. You can just hear the venom in it when my mom says it, and you can kind of hear it (and the disrespect) in McCain's voice, too. Overall, though, the debate was a win for Obama. In the first debate, each accomplished what he needed to accomplish. In this one, Obama came across as warmer and more directly addressing the questions. McCain needed to get off the ropes. He didn't. This was an even bigger win for Obama than the first debate.

... I never addressed the main point of your question. Of course it is fair to ask the question, "who is he?" But it's equally fair to ask the question of John McCain. Is he POW John? Keating Five John? Is he the John McCain who swallowed the insults Karl Rove thrust on his child only to turn around and hire the same political operatives to run his campaign? Is he John McCain the maverick who claims to have bucked his party and George Bush (seriously, based on opinion polls of Bush, it seems to only make McCain seem an opportunist)? Is he the John McCain who (rightfully) called the Christian right agents of intolerance only to painfully suck up to them later? Is he the John McCain who voluntarily chose to associate himself with Rev. Hagee? Is he the John McCain who "suspended" his campaign to rectify the financial crisis, despite having zero economics experience, who by all accounts did nothing while back in Washington, who then blamed Obama for the bailout's failure only to have (today) his campaign manager boast that McCain went back to Washington to kill the bailout? Is he the John McCain who chose Sarah Palin as the person who should be in command of this country after a 20 minute meeting? Is it the John McCain whose wife blames Obama for putting her son in harm's way when John McCain voted down appropriation bills for funding the war for political reasons? Sure, you can ask who is Obama, but I can also ask who is John McCain?

She never said that. You may have allowed conservative talk radio to tell you she said that and you may have conservative friends at the local coffee shop who insist she has said that, and you may even believe that she said that, but -- believe me -- she never said that.

That's true, but it Ifill also ran a 50-50 risk that having Obama's name on the book cover meant that it could be sold at dollar stores on November 5th if he lost.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8100303699.html An unnamed GOP strategist now thinks the GOP will lose between 6 and 8 Senate seats based on the current economic crisis. That moves the Dems to within reach of a filibuster proof majority. On top of that, McCain's pulling out of Michigan leaves some vulnerable House members without the money, coattails and energy a national race brings with it. This is the Bush legacy. He is to Republicans what Carter was to Dems.

Uhh... lighten up, Francis. My statement about McCain was a joke. Jeesh, I'll do finger puppets next time if that helps.

I just read a funny reaction to Palin's winks one woman had on another site: Here's what I thought when Palin "dropped" that first wink at us: "Did she just wink at us like she was America's cocktail waitress?"

Oh, I understand the concepts of conflict and appearance of impropriety. So, based on that same standard, on your standard, because Tom Brokaw wrote books about the "greatest generation" he should be barred from moderating any debate with someone as old as McCain?

Well, it's because it's frequently the case that people who are obsessed with measuring things... well, you get the point.

I'm still waiting. C'mon, Shark, Bush_Cheney. You had to have seen something. The big, bad, east coast liberal media elite must have done something to offend your sensibilities and must have done something to show Gwen was in the tank for Obama. Something. Please. Enlighten us.

So I'm waiting for someone who watched the debate point to evidence of Gwen Ifill's bias based on her performance last night. Anyone?