Tonight has to be the night McCain begins to turn this round

sydney

America should have the sense to note that Obama is a first generation American. McCain has been in the melting pot a lot longer.
Experience in these turbulent times needs the steady hand of McCain.
I have that nagging feeling that the black card will be played at the end.

CG

Mc~Cain's recent campaign has been a disgrace. He is supposed to value 'honour', but it now looks as if he has sold it in order to wn election.

THX1138

Even Americano realises it's over, hardly uplifting headlines for the wingnuts

McCain has to shake the race up

Going negative won't work for McCain until he has a positive message to match it

Palin makes it through the night

if Palin chokes tonight the presidential race could be over

Palin's worst public moment yet

Palin needs to show she is up to the job

A draw was a good result for the front-runner

McCain must win tonight's debate to get his campaign back on track

McCain's failing

McCain's risky gambit

Palin survives - but hardly shines

Feed the Rich

He's toast. I'm a Tory but I'd vote for Obama. McCain's bailout posturing was truly awful. The man was dithering all over the place. Maybe Brown could have him home over for tea with Dr. Greenspan, the bubble king.

Frank P

I've been trying to post on Melanie's blog for three hours - no go, apparently - has the whole site gone up the pictures - no comments for three hours? Has the meltdown reached here already? Are we to see the Barclays Bros have gone broke next on the Breaking News?

Rob

james - there's an implication in your post that the failure of Ayers as a strategy in the current climate is regrettable and that you hope tonight wil allow that or another trivial issue to dominate. is that really how you would like Mccain to win? Perhaps a decent & coherent vision for the future of the economy would be better?
and sydney seems to be saying that using race might be a neccesary if regrettable strategy. are you saying - given your other views - it is excusable?

Hysteria

look - the Democrats are going to win - the zeitgeist tells us this.

We then find out if Obama is indeed the Manchurian candidate or not. If he is the checks and balances of the US system will protect us from the worst of the socialist excesses. (and the GOP get back in 2012)

If he is on the level - all well and good.

Matthew Blott

Just watched the debate. I was a strong advocate of having these leadership debates in this country a few weeks ago. Having watched half of the first (before I started falling asleep) and the whole of this one I don't see what we are missing out on. Compared to a Paxman or even Dimbleby interview with repeated follow up questions this sort of thing is a walk in the park for the contenders.

I saw it on the BBC and two London based US citizens were watching and remarked it was pretty dull. I then switched over to CNN and could have been watching the analysis of an NFL game. They were talking about how the candidates' wives didn't shake hands, how McCain shuffled about on stage. Man, pur-lease.

Oh, I'm an Obama supporter and I thought McCain edged it. He had the best line - "no time for on the job training (or something very similar)" which very much reminded me of Gordon Brown's "no time for a novice" line. Like the last debate though there wasn't much to seperate them and it wasn't a game changer. I guess that will suit Obama. Of to bed now. Zzzzz

Craig Strachan

A peevish and ill-at-ease performance by McCain, who at one point gestured dismissively towards Obama and refered to him as "that one".

That one?

One what?

CG

The REpublican Party needs a radical intellectual overhaul. this can best be dne in opposition. A win now would be dreadful for the RP, It would be like the Tories in 1992, a pyrrhic victory which led to annihilation a few years later.

THX1138

Tonight has to be the night McCain begins to turn this round.

All over then!!

Conservative Cabbie

I watched the debate and I have to admit I was disappointed both by John McCain's performance and Tom Brokaw's. I thought it was supposed to be a town hall. If that was the case, why did Brokaw ask more questions than the audience?

If McCain is going to win this election, he is going to have to do a lot better than he did tonight.

derek

A nutter on Toby's telegraph blog is whining,"If Obama is so great why is he only 5% ahead?' I wanted to scream: "Because he is half black [ ie Black].
McCain's stage movement and his 'that one' were deeply disturbing.
The game is up. Sara - grab your flute.

Stephen Rothbart

What is so disappointing about the Republican strategy is why they have left the Democrats to pin the entire economic mess on Bush and the Republicans.

As could be seen from the very funny sketch that NBC made for the Saturday Night Live show, pulled by NBC for political reasons (it showed the Democrats in a bad light for once), the Democrats were the authors of the politcally correct blitz on mortgage lenders that made refusing a loan on the basis of previous credit ratings a crime. The sketch featured the very same Barney Frank who stood with Pelosi and blamed the Bush adminsistration, and who, in real life, stated on television in 2004 that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were financially sound, agreeing that they were indeed to blame, only for the Pelosi character to shut him up.

Since the economy is the story, why are McCain's tacticians focusing on Obama's character, instead of foucsing on the intrinsic dishonesty of his campaign, and the complicity of the Democrats in the creation of the sub-prime mortgage disaster?

Time is running short. Attack their lies and double-speak. They created the mess, not Bush. Why on earth does McCain not just say so?

Michael Wilson

Great article!
I'm constantly watching the polls to see if the last debate will give McCain some momentum.
I use a Widget to track the progression of the polls.
I think you might like it:-)
http://www.youcalc.com/apps/1221747067033

... and its easy to put on your blog and fits in your sidebar!

Make a difference, keep on voting!

Trafalgar

Stephen, both Rep and Dem created the mess of irresponsible lending to homeowners - but the Rep were mainly complicit in the corporate lending bubble through light regulation and the massive increase in government spending/borrowing of the last 8 years - not the Democrats.

And let's not forget Greenspan - who kept interest rates artificially low to encourage the whole shebang.

If you want to know why McCain isn't making this the story - it's because it would pull him closer to Bush and the Republicans (who he would rather disassociate himself from) and detract from his preferred image as an independent "maverick".

Conservative Cabbie

Derek

Obama is five points ahead because he is black, you're right, but not in the way you mean.
If Obama was white, do you really think he would have beaten Hillary in the primary. He wouldn't have a hope in hell. He is mobilising the black vote and a strong liberal vote because he is black, people want to see the first black President.
The reason why he is only five points ahead is that people don't really know him - he has no track record to speak of and people are worried about his links to radicalism.

Stephen Rothbart

Trafalgar, I am not saying Republicans are blameless, but it was Clinton's administration that brought in reckless policies that made banks liable for financial damages if they refused an applicant for a loan even if that person was out of work and on welfare.

That was carried on through both Republican and Democrat Congresses, to be sure, but with everyone doing well off it, including the homebuyers, why change?

My point is only that like with Gordon Brown now doing well with a problem he helped cause, the parties of the left are reaping the benefits politically of their own failures, which they blame on everyone else.

Obama is a gullible fool, in my opinion, naive and a potential disaster as President of the Free World at this dangerous time, but he is no terrorist, and saying so only hurts the Republicans. Attack the fact that some of the people now advising him are the very same people that covered up the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac problems in 2004 that Bush and his supporters tried to investigate. Including Barney Frank.

That's all.