quarter23cd

Cake walks are overrated. I'd much rather have the Big Ten recover to full strength again and risk dropping a few games here and there rather than watching a team sleepwalk through the season with swelled heads and get thrashed when they finally face real competition.

In these tough economic times, I'm Brian 40.

Yeah, I think Biden's choking-up moment caught her off guard--it caught me off guard. That one went off the script and I think she looked like she was moved, too, but didn't know how to respond to it...so she went back to the script. She handled it awkwardly. I completely expect some pundit to chime in about that moment, calling it cheesy or pandering or something. It wasn't. I usually hate those sorts of moments precisely because they usually do feel manipulative, but this sort of came out of nowhere and felt very genuine. As a dad, that moment gave me chills--thank you, Joe, for point

I don't think so anymore. The financial mess of the last couple weeks took her out of that spotlight. Issues are important again and being wonky is not her strong suit--watch how she defers to quoting McCain whenever she encounters a policy question. At best, they're shooting for an outsider, regular-folks vibe with her and hope people identify with that. She got the talking points down last night, but there wasn't a lot of evidence that she fully grasps several of the issues yet.(what was up with her nuclear Iran answer?) In this current environment, I don't think they can reasonably pos

Deciding a "winner" here is, I guess, kind of pointless since both campaigns were trying to achieve different things--and did so pretty effectively. Biden impressed me last night. For those out there who still worry about Obama's lack of experience, Biden brings the experience to back up Obama's vision. This was clear last night--he was comfortable and eloquent on nearly every subject. I'm glad he's on this ticket. Palin, whatever you think of her, didn't need to be that. That's not her role. She provides a folksy and accessible face to a McCain campaign that otherwise doesn't have tho

More like a Hulkamaniac.

I only caught the second half. I will give Palin credit where it is due, she was a very poised debater--she does indeed speak in "glittering generalities" almost all of the time, but she somehow manages to do so effectively. In terms of substance, Biden clearly was more knowledgeable on...well, everything. And then Palin would chime in with a "Oh there you go again, Joe" or something like that and was off and running with her "folksiness" and "aw shucks, I don't know how you people in Washington see things". It was irritating to me because she almost never actually said anything, but I'm

Its the only possible strategy for her. The best defense is a good offense, you know? If she gets back on the defensive and starts getting the deer in the headlights look again, she's in trouble. Her only option is to attack relentlessly and keep the ball in Biden's court.

Not surprising. Will be interesting to see if Biden is able to turn it around and get her on on her heels where she hasn't done too well at thinking on the fly in those interviews lately. I think the debate format will work well for her. We'll see...

I recently saw a Bob Dole sticker. That's pretty hardcore.

I have seen yard signs instigate fights among people who are otherwise friends, but I'm really not sure anyone drives down the road and says to himself "Hey, you know that cheap plastic sign over there looks pretty persuasive..."

Yeah, I know yard signs are a poor indicator of trends. I have yet to be swayed by one, so that's cool with me that they're keeping the focus on more important things. It was really just an observation--the McCain signs have been sprouting like weeds in recent weeks, although the state polls have been going the other way. Maybe that's why the big influx of McCain signs. Who knows?

Wikipedia has a bunch of examples, but this is the one that immediately came to mind:

Not sure I'd call it the beginning of the end. Michigan is pretty reliably blue and it looked like he had a shot at making is close, but with polls the way they're going its probably more important to play defense on Florida and Ohio. If he loses either of those, he's pretty much toast. FWIW, I don't see McCain losing OH. I'm just not feeling the vibe. I'm in Columbus, one of the areas Obama figures to be strongest in, but in my neighborhood, at least, McCain is clearly winning the yard-sign war. Don't know how good of an indicator that is, but most of the state is considerably more con

But she's being censored!!! I'm reading all these pre-debate articles and getting pretty ill over all the hand-wringing over how Biden approaches Palin in order not to appear like he's picking on the poor defenseless little woman. Please. I mean, I know, I know. Clearly we don't live in a perfect world where gender equality is yet a reality, but this whole "delicate flower" crap really is setting the cause of feminism back about 50 years. I'm glad my three daughters aren't old enough yet for me to have to explain to them why the female candidate has to be treated so carefully and can't

Yep. No matter how far the polls go in O's favor, he needs them to go farther. I predict a lot of election-day cold feet. I could be wrong about that, but that's just my gut feeling. Also, the fact that the tone of this campaign has been getting nastier by the day is no accident and plays better on the GOP side. What's the best way to counter against the kind of "optimistic" campaign Obama has been trying to run--you know, "Change!" and "Hope!" and "Yes We Can!" and all that? You drag the campaign through the mud, make it ugly, make it politics as usual, and do your best to turn as many

I will truly be amazed if Twitter can be shown to actually be useful for something.

I like the optimism--I'm not quite so confident about the outcome yet, but things are looking good for Obama at the moment. Tonight will be interesting. VP debates don't usually amount to all that much, but this one tonight feels like a tipping point in this race. This race could effectively end tonight with a Palin trainwreck or it could suddenly get very interesting again. We've had a couple solid weeks of good laughs at Palin's expense, but there is still an opportunity there for her...and the ridiculously low expectations for her going into this can only work in her favor. A front

As much as I'm getting tired of hearing the line about Palin being "one 72 year old heartbeat away from the presidency", I can't disagree that its a major issue, either. Not to mention his multiple bouts with melanoma. Its not a particularly PC thing to say out loud--ageism and all that--but its hard to feel particularly confident about his health and it became a much larger issue for me when he selected Palin, whom under no circumstances do I ever want to see sworn in as president. Set the Wayback Machine for VC circa Nov. '04. It'll be something like that.

There's been a big ongoing stir here in OH over the concept of same-day voting--ie, there is an overlap this week where you can register to vote and fill out a paper ballot at the same time. One side is shouting about the potential for voter fraud, the other is suggesting the complainers are primarily interested in weeding out voters by giving them more hoops to jump through. I'm not sure I have strong opinion about it, I just feel like I'm missing out on the whole controversy by already being registered. Can I un-register and then re-register so I can be part of this controversy? I ju

Totally agreed. I've seen nothing to suggest she won't be a disaster, but hey, at this point in time nothing would surprise me anymore. In other news, this has been cracking me up all week:

Yeah, I read that, too. As much fun as it is to laugh and poke fun, the fact remains that she can still redeem herself in the public eye with a quality debate performance. It appears to be a longshot, but hey, never underestimate your opponent before the big game, you know? She's either going to come out swinging, more prepared than people anticipate......or she's going to crash and burn on an epic scale. Either way should make for some interesting teevee, I guess. Really, the bar for her has been set preposterously low...if she can't surpass expectations here, I'll be at a loss for words

Right...well, I know at least a couple people who have less than 30 years to go and might be a bit freaked out about that 87% thing. Oh, absolutely. I think part of what I was trying to allude to earlier is that a lot of this "no money down" stuff kind of muddied the line between buying and renting. In many cases, buying suddenly looked like a more attractive and affordable option than renting in some markets if you could do it without dropping a substantial down payment and could frequently end up with cheaper payments than the apartment building down the street. Hey, who wouldn't like