I haven’t had the chance to see any of them yet–not in my neighborhood, and too busy with work and family issues at this time. I do hope to see Obama or Biden speak, though, and to perhaps get a chance to heckle McCain and the Moosekiller.

Lots of ads, too, although I skip through most of them with the DVR. Life’s too short to watch commercials.

I’m really psyched for the Obama/McCain debate, though. Obama might want to scale back on the big words and be conscious of his audience, but I think there’s really no contest there otherwise.

Answer: Because we expect them, on average, to be smart enough to change a light bulb, and to call an electrician when the house needs to be rewired.

Uncertified citizens are most certainly eligible to be elected to high office, but they are expected to prove their competence in the campaign. Palin is off to a bad start here.

And that part about comparing Reagan and Palin to Truman? Off the deep end. And he contradicted himself: Truman was a two term senator before he was V.P. I think that counts as ‘certified.’

From Maha’s article: “But he(Obama) also has to take care not to seem to be showing off his intellect.”

What a sorry, sorry state of affairs, that this is actually true. If he looks too smart Hayward won’t vote for him

For McCain to foist this petty, small-minded person on the United States at this delicate moment in history is the most despicable act of his career – it borders on treason.

Recall that the Kerry-Bush debates repeated the classic trap for Democrats: cerebral Kerry talking policy, and dumb like a fox Bush talking to voters’ emotions. McCain is nowhere as skilled a manipulator as Bush is, but the upcoming debates risk reprising this same trap. I read reports (sorry no link) that Obama is going way into too much detail about policy in this phase of the campaign – wrong, wrong, wrong. This chronic problem for the Democrats, and the remedy, is well laid out in Drew Westin’s The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.

I saw a few excerpts of Palins’ interview with Gibson, and went to bed that night feeling better than I had in days. Palin is a doof, and should be easy for Biden to take down, even given all the cautions you mentioned. Her fans will never be swayed, but Biden may be able to add a few points to our column. The real question for me is what form the Obama/McCain matchups will look like, and will the public like Obama – beyond those of us who are already committed. We have such bad luck with cerebral guys like Kerry.

Nixon’s five-oclock shadow – made him look sinister – against Kennedy’s fresh (heavily made-up) face lost Nixon an important debate, even though content-wise he actually won, and ultimately the election of course.

George senior debating ? takes a quick glance at his watch toward the end and the public gives to the debate to his opponent. (The ‘glance’ apparently indicated to the audience that George wanted to be anywhere other than where he was, translated, he was way out of his league, stupid, unprepared for anything and he knew it.)

That an election can so easily turn on so little is more than scary. And as more information comes out about Palin, it’s pretty clear that to elect Palin would be to re-elect Bush – even their personalities are remarkably similar – and that’s even more scary.

In addition to your excellent piece, two others that are raising a welt on me this weekend are :

Marcellus asks us why we are pissed off about McCain’s lead.
http://marcellus.nfshost.com/?p=155, and

Jamison Fosner is shining a bright light on the MSM that prompts the expression, “screwed, blued and tattooed. Jamisonhttp://mediamatters.org/items/200809120021?f=h_latest.

I dunno, F-’em and feed ‘em fisheads.

–break–

I do see lots of Obama bumperstickers and yard signs here. So far I’ve seen one McCain bumpersticker, and maybe three yard signs. The last time they leaned Democratic was in 1992.

The Gore-Quayle VP debate in 1992 was another indicator; the next morning, I heard several people say it convinced them to vote for Clinton. Let’s hope Biden and Palin are asked intelligent, serious questions in their debate.