Pretty sure Libertarian Bob Barr is still running, actually.

Worth mentioning that Bob Barr is a former Republican and pretty similar to John McCain, by the way.

Tonight was debate #1. I thought Obama came off as though yes, he does know what he's doing.

Bonus: After McCain insisted that Kissinger does not support meeting foreign leaders without preconditions, Katie Couric said in CBS' wrap up talking-head-ery that she asked Kissinger about the topic for her interview with Sarah Palin (which scared the shit out of me, incidentally), and his response was yes, he does support meeting foreign leaders without preconditions.

The Veep debate is this upcoming Thursday. It's going to be a goddamn massacre.

I thought it was funny how the moderator tried for the entire time to get them to start yelling at each other.

Really he was like "Reply to Mr. Obama's claim directly. There was a lot of "This is a misrepresentation and you know it"'s going around, and a lot of misrepresentative claims from BOTH sides. (McCain supporters think that his "Are you just going to go up to teh guy who says he wants to destroy Isreal and say "no, you can't?"" dig was a solid blow, but I think Obama's "You're really going to condemn me for talking about using force in Pakistan when you SANG A SONG ABOUT BOMBING IRAN" was better, if more subtle.)

As far as issues go, they seemed to pretty much be on the same page. The funny thing is though, it's a page that Obama's always been on, and McCain seems to have recently turned to, as far as the economy is concerned. And as far as the military is concerned, McCain kept saying Obama doesn't understand, but Obama seems to understand exactly what's going on, and McCain never really explained why Obama was wrong with anything more than "I'm more experianced so I know" (he did this one bit where he talked about historical lessons, but then his point sort of vanished at one bit, and he just said "I've been there, I know stuff")

All in all I don't think this debate is going to change any minds. We just need to vote already because the lines seem pretty definitively drawn.

I'd be perfectly fine with waiting until after next Thursday. =3

I guess that since Sarah Palin didn't projectile-vomit on anybody during the debate, she won? That's what Joe Lieberman's trying to say to Katie Couric, anyway.

Debate 2 was uneventful. There's videos all over YouTube of McCain/Palin supporters at McCain/Palin rallies calling Obama treasonous/a terrorist. And now, the Alaskan panel in charge of the firing thing said Palin abused her authority.

What now, my friends? What now?

Obama has a 6-10% lead in the polls. The popular consensus is that McCain won't win unless the economy recovers in a month.

(I mailed my absentee ballot for Obama today )

What state?

Ohio.

In one of the counties that went for Kerry and Gore in the last two elections, even.

The "Joe the plumber" mentioned ad nauseum in last night's debate apparently lives pretty close to me. Also apparently he doesn't know how taxation works, as he's buying a company for over $250,000, and expecting to earn much less, meaning he'd get more of a tax cut under Obama. More importantly, it seems he's got liens filed against him for not paying taxes.

So what does he care about Obama's tax cuts, right? He's not paying them anyway. :p

I may hate using "gate" as a suffix for political scandals/pseudo-scandals, but "Sartorial-Flare-Gate" is perhaps the most hilarious name I've heard for this stupid shit.

Heaven forbid anyone think of spending some of that money on winter clothes for the poor.

Yeah, but what the RNC did there is actually perfectly legal, and they're going to donate all the clothes to charity after the election they said (because Palin won't need them? Does that mean they think they'll lose?)

Oh, I didn't say it was illegal or anything. I just think it's silly to spend so much on clothes, and I think helping the poor is a good campaign move.