10/15 Roundup: McCain's Mountain, Reality Bites, God's Reputation

Obama's LeadLeader: Looking up a Cliff

- The last of the presidential debates will be held tonight on Long Island. Going into it, John McCain is facing an increasingly massive deficit in the polls, and a host of strategic challenges. A NYT/CBS poll has Obama up 53%-39%-- a whopping 14 percentage points. An LA Times/Bloomberg poll has Obama up 9, and DemFromCT reports that these big numbers have held steady for Obama over the past few days.

- So what can McCain do tonight to save himself? It's a dicey situation, because, as some of these same polls note, Obama's debate performances have helped him a great deal, and McCain's negative attacks have become self-inflicted wounds. Obama has delivered two debate performances characterized by his preternatural calm and has given the American people the impression of someone who has kept a clear head through this financial storm. As Adam Nagourney writes, the only thing holding Obama back before was the American voters' unfamiliarity with him, and now that people are getting a good sense of him, they like what they see.

- Mike Madden at Salon wonders which John McCain will show up to the debate tonight, 

Economy

- Reality came home to roost yesterday, and stocks pulled back from Monday's big gains.  Early news says the same is happening today in Europe and Asia. The NY Times reports that the outlook for profits and jobs is still grim. 

Election '08

- Early voting is catching on, and Georgia is a prime example, where already, more people have cast their ballots than voted early in 2004.

- Nate Silver at 538 looks at  the returns on early voters (they favor Obama), and suggests that pollsters are vastly underestimating the way young and minority voters could swing this election.

- Emily Yoffe at Slate writes that the odious mortgage market could turn Florida for Obama.

- The ever incisive Christopher Hitchens endorses Obama in Slate.

- Jonathan Raban has a character profile of Sarah Palin in the London Review of Books.  It gives a better picture of her pre-VP days than anything else I've read.

International

- A new intelligence report says that Pakistan-- the world's scariest nuclear state-- is "on the edge," and describes it as a state with "no money, no energy, no government.

- An NY Times editorial warns that Afghanistan-- the real front in the war on terror-- is in a downward spiral, and that the U.S. needs to send additional troops, pronto.

One More Thing

- NDN President Simon Rosenberg is quoted in the New York Observer talking about Obama's (electoral) nuclear weapons.

- Last, a pastor reminds God that his reputation is at stake in this election:

 

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