Inauguration

Despite having been deeply interested in the election, I find myself strangely detached from the Inauguration. I think a lot of it is that circumstances have conspired to ensure that I won't actually be able to watch it. The picture above, of my current location, is not a holiday snap. I'm in Palm Springs for business, and while tomorrow's schedule of events ends mid-day, that will already be too late, Pacific time. I will be eating breakfast when history is made.

For the most part, I'm all right with that. I don't need the ceremony. I need--this country needs--what comes after. I don't expect miracles. I just expect adequacy, after eight years of supremely inadequate leadership, supremely deficient decisions.

I also find that I'm seeing this inauguration in a different light from many others. I was very excited, very proud of America on Election Day, and really, I still am. As I said at the time, we did a different thing, a new thing, electing a man of Barack Obama's racial background to our highest office.

And yet, as he takes office, I find myself reserved, held back from jubilation. I'm not sad at all, or angry, or any negative thing. Just...reserved. Because I keep asking myself this one quesiton:

Won't it be a truly fantastic day when there is absolutely nothing remarkable about electing someone with that sort of background to high office?

It's a paradox, I know, but I'm caught in it. I cannot be jubilant today, because I find it somehow only an incomplete victory that Obama's election is so very remarkable as to draw historic, record-making crowds to Washington to see it and commemorate it.

The day I will be most jubilant is the day everyone looks at the inauguration of an African-American, or Hispanic, or perhaps a Chinese-American; or Jewish, or Buddhist, or, dare I even whisper the possibility, Muslim president...and yawns because hey, it's just another inauguration, right?

Anyway, for those with the lesiure, please do enjoy the inauguration tomorrow. Appreciate not just the immediate historicness of having an African-American becoming the Leader of the Free World, but the long-term historicalness of the 44th successful, peaceful, democratically-based transfer of that office.

Obama's Delicate Dance

It's been a quiet couple of weeks for the topics I like to cover in this column; not so much because nothing's been happening, as because not a lot of it is really new. The economy continues to wrestle with the downward spiral triggered by the sub-prime mortgage mess, for example, and there's little about it that's really new relative to what I've already discussed.

The economic news at the moment is that the Big Three US automakers are back on Capitol Hill begging for a dime, and the Senate is looking at best reluctant and at worst outright recalcitrant. Democratic leadership is very much in favour of some kind of bailout, not least of which because the Democratic Party is still very much beholden to organized labor. The rank-and-file of the party, however, are much less interested, and the Republicans aren't really interested at all. In particular, Senator Shelby continues to rail against the idea and treat the CEOs of those companies as punching bags when they come to testify. Meanwhile, light sweet crude hit $43.97 the barrel this afternoon.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about right now...

***

Since 5 November, President-Designate Barack Obama has been very careful, in public pronouncements, to insist that there is only one president at a time, and it ain't him yet. This despite calls from nearly every quarter for him to weigh in on the key issues that will soon be His Problem. World leaders, for example, were disappointed he didn't attend the economic summit on 15 November, merely sending quasi-official observers to the proceedings.

As I think I've said before, from the standpoint of respect for the office of president--and safeguarding his own eventual lame-duck days--this is the right stance to take. It can't be an easy one, however, for a man as intelligent as he, who seems to have gotten involved in politics in part because of a passion to make things better (and yes, for the moment, I'm choosing to take him at face value, foolish though that may be), to find himself right on the cusp of being able to do something, and yet having to wait just a little longer.

Which explains the somewhat mixed message he's actually sending with his transition. While it's plenty usual for a president-designate or president-elect to start naming his intended nominees before he's sworn in, it's downright rare for him to start making announcements in November, even if he already knows in his own head who they're going to be. At this point, he's announced his intended nominees for State, Commerce, Treasury and Defense, as well as various key "inside the White House" advisory posts. These are all areas of extreme national importance right now, so it's understandable why he might start with these.

But by starting so early, and naming such high-profile, intelligent, active individuals to the roles, it looks a lot like a shadow government.

Shadow governments are nothing new in parliamentary nations. It's quite common for the Loyal Opposition to have a key members of its parliamentary caucus named to especially keep an eye on specific departments of government, becoming, in essence, the relevant minister's shadow.

In the US, however, we don't tend to work this way. And it's particularly odd coming from the man who keeps insisting that there's only one president at a time.


***

On the other hand, I have to say that I have few complaints with his choices so far, both for those top jobs and for others that have been mentioned.

George W. Bush has notoriously governed by favorites, with the most important qualification for any nomination being personal and ideological loyalty to him. An extreme example of this is the sad case of Harriet Miers and her inexplicable and ultimately failed nomination to the Supreme Court. Less extreme, and more ideological than personal, was the similarly inexplicable, but strangely successful nomination of John Roberts to become Chief Justice of the United States, before he'd even been successfully voted on for the Supreme Court!

The glaring exception, in turn, was General Colin Powell, who tried valiantly to serve as Bush's secretary of state, only to be continually undermined by those with closer personal and ideological ties to the president.

While much is being made of Obama's "team of rivals", what's really remarkable is that this is a team of technocrats, people who are being chosen either because of clear qualifications for the specific office, or because they're generally recognized as being intelligent enough to do the job without them. Hillary Clinton, for example, doesn't really have that much direct foreign policy experience, and has never been a diplomat; yet no-one I've seen really doubts her ability to act as Obama's chief envoy and master of foreign affairs.

Now, there's a downside to technocrats, too. Highly educated people sometimes lose sight of practical reality. They sometimes get caught up in their own cleverness. But right now, I'm sort of looking forward to the idea of a cabinet staffed entirely by people who are widely regarded as being picked because they're smart.

Politics: What I want to happen

This is not an endorsement article, per se. There wouldn't be much point, since in terms of the man I want to win the top job, everyone who knows me has known my answer since the MN caucuses back in February.

But there's more to what I want to see on 4 November than just that the least evil should win.

For one thing, I don't just want Barack Obama to win the presidency, becoming the first black President, and only the second non-WASP President (the first being Kennedy, who was Catholic) in US history. He'll be more than that, by the way. Think about every European and European-descended country that has a white majority. Have any of them had a national leader who hailed from one of their minority populations? Many have had women, but all have been white. Can you imagine France electing a black premier? Or Germany?

No, I don't think so. For good or ill, the very fact that we're even seriously talking about the possibility (and a strong possibility at that) that Barack Obama will be President 44 is an example of and testament to American Exceptionalism.

But I digress.

I don't just want Obama to win. I want him to win big. I want him to pull something close to 350 electoral votes. I want him to crack 50% of the popular vote. I want there to be absolutely no question, as there was for Bush's first term, about whether he "really" won. I want it to be clear and unequivocal that better--even if it's only slightly better--than half of those who bothered to turn out favoured Obama.

I also want some of the third-party candidates to manange to crack a percent or two, each. Yes, I realize that especially in the case of Nader, that's a couple of percentage more that Obama might have been above 50%. But more to the point, if Obama cracks 50%, and Nader and other other whackjobs take, say, 4% total, than that demonstrates that noticably fewer than 50% of the electorate liked McCain. In other words, he can't say that he almost won. Again, I want Obama's win to be clear and unchallengable. I've said repeatedly over the last 8 years that Gore lost, in the end, because he failed to inspire a sufficient margin so that the hanging chads wouldn't matter.

I want to see Al Franken take the Senate seat currently held by Norm Coleman. I know a lot of DFL partisans who really, really loathe Coleman, and I can see why: he turned coats, he's staunchly pro-life, he's fiscally conservative, and for the first two or three years of his term he was a Bush zombie.

I don't loathe him, but I don't really like him much, either. Mainly because of his years as a Bush zombie, but also because of a persistent sense that he's a chameleon. Al Franken doesn't inspire huge confidence in me, I'll admit, but at least he's been consistent. So I'll settle for a very narrow win by Franken...or, for that matter, a narrow enough win by Coleman that it makes him think a bit.

(Curious fact: if Franken wins, he will be the fourth successive Jew, not counting Dean Barkley's two months filling in for the late Wellstone, to sit in the "Class 2" seat from the Land of Lutherans: Rudy Boschwitz, Paul Wellstone, and Norm Coleman.)

I want to see Michelle Batshit Bachmann (R-MN 6) lose. I would prefer it to be a humilatingly huge loss, but there's no real prospect for that. I will settle simply for her to be turfed out. I don't know Tinklenberg from a hole in the wall, honestly, and I don't get a vote in the 6th District Race, anyway, so I don't care so much that Tinklenberg wins, as that Bachmann loses.

I want to see Keith Ellison (DFL-MN 5), the first Muslim ever returned to Congress, and my district's representative to that body, win again. Fortunately this seems like a no-brainer. I haven't even seen evidence of a campaign, suggesting that none of his opponents are really credible. Of course, this district is so firmly in the DFL's grip that a Republican would have to pretty much be handing out suitcases of cash to win that seat.

I want to see a 59 seat Democratic majority in the Senate. Not 60. 59. I want them to have to work a bit to stay fillibuster-proof. I don't want them utterly unfettered. I have friends reading this I know feel differently, who desperately want to see that magical 60, but I'm just not partisan enough to think that giving any party that kind of power is a good idea. Of course, as others have pointed out, even 60 isn't a guarantee of fillibuster-proof-ness. Senators tend to think a bit more for themselves.

I will also point out, as fair warning to the more partisan readers in the crowd, that if, two years from now, the Democrats have demonstrated either that they're incompetent or that their ideas are making things signifiantly worse, I reserve the right to root for a Republican majority mid-term. I don't want the Republicans out right now because they're Republicans. I want them out because they've screwed everything up. But Democrats have screwed things up in the past, too, and they will again in the future. You can take that to the bank...if you can find a bank still open to take it to.

I want to see some clear and workable ideas for stopping the bleeding in our economy. I don't want a New New Deal. The New Deal didn't fix anything; all it did was freeze things in place so they didn't get worse. I want to see a clear plan for how we're going to not just stop getting worse, but make things better. I want the Democrats to show that they can be both liberal and in favour of real prosperity and not just the prosperity of, "at least it's not getting any worse, so enjoy what you have."

Lastly: I want America to lead the world again. Really lead it, not just say we're the leader and strong-arm people into following us. I want us to innovate. I want us to shine. I want to be proud to be an American, not because it's required to pass some cultural test of patriotism or loyalty, but because the nation has earned my pride.

Politics: Are we there, yet?

Today, I had occasion to say to a friend that it was a really good thing I don't have a nail-biting habit.

Otherwise, I'd be up to the elbow right now.

"But Mikey," I hear you say, "the polls all say that Obama's got it locked. Gallup's got Obama up 10  on McCain. If you go with Real Clear Politics's average, he's +6. Five Thirty Eight's got about a 7% spread in Obama's favour. He's going to win everything Gore or Kerry won and then a few that they didn't, and given how close those elections were, that puts him over the top! Stop worrying!"

I'd love to. Really. The problem can be summarized in three words:

"Dewey Defeats Truman".

There are some significant parallels, although the parties are reversed. Republican Dewey was ahead in the polls, and those same polls showed significant coat-tails that would drag a strong Republican majority into both houses of Congress. Truman was the incumbent, running for his own term after stepping into FDRs, and was deeply unpopular with certain segments of the population.

The big issue that year was that polling was in its infancy, and phone polls only work if people have telephones. In the late '40s, this was predominantly people with money, and they favoured the Republican Dewey, naturally. Pollsters had also failed to take into account the relative lack of momentum in popular opinion; that it can and will turn on a dime. So they stopped polling weeks before the election, sure that they had the answer already.

On Election Day, it became clear almost immediately that the polls had been dead wrong. Conservative media at the time insisted as the day wore on that "late returns" would show a surge for Dewey, and honestly seemed to believe it--hence, the Tribune's headline--but it was never a realistic hope. Truman not only won, he won by a handy electoral margin, and brought in a Democratic majority to both houses. Ultimately, the populace punished the Republicans for the "Do Nothing" 80th Congress, which, with a weak Republican majority, failed to get much past FDR's successor.

Polling has come along, long way since then, but it still has some dreadful flaws. The difference is that most people in the media now know those flaws. They still use polls, because it's a nice pithy way to summarize a story, but they know, and often admit to, the flaws. For example, nowadays, phone polling tends to still be focused on land-line phones, because of a reluctance to spam cellphones (thank heaven!). But now, the equation is opposite of what it was in the mid-40s. The people who still have landline phones tend to be poorer.

Then, there's the fact that, in this jaded age, many of us simply hang up on telephone solicitations of any kind, especially robocalls. Part of how the campaigns themselves gauge support is based on how many people they successfully talked to, but McCain's campaign has used a lot of robocallers, which are even more likely to get hung up on. Therefore, McCain's own numbers may well be wrong. He may have tremendous support from people who simply don't want to talk to his robots.

The race question also, sadly, screws up everything when it comes to believing the polls. It shouldn't, of course, but it does. This is the much bally-hooed (and somewhat debunked) "Bradley Effect", where people say to pollsters, "Sure, I'll vote for the {insert minority here}!" but they're lying because they don't want the stranger on the other end of the phone to think they're a bigotted pig. But on Election Day, when push comes to shove, they'll mark for the white guy.

Of course, as I just said, there's some material out there debunking the effect, so it may not really have ever happened, let alone be happening now. But human nature being what it is, it's not hard to imagine, really. And therefore, it's easy to worry about.

And so, yes, friends, I'm nervous about how this is going to turn out. In 2000 I was complacent, in part because Clinton had so trashed his own image and legacy that I was ready for even a stupid monkey. I didn't vote for the stupid monkey, mind you, but I was OK with him, because hey, how much harm could he do in four years, right?

Yeah.

Then in 2004 I was also complacent, in part because I was still personally angry about 9/11 and not thinking as clearly as I would like, and therefore still somewhat pro-war; but also because Kerry was such a damned zombie that it was impossible to take him seriously. Again, I didn't vote for the stupid monkey, but I still firmly believed that everything would be OK in the end.

Except...it wasn't. The wars have dragged on. In the case of at least one of the two wars, it's clear to all but the most die-hard, delusional neo-cons that it was the wrong war for the wrong reasons. Our standing in the world is shit. We lost their respect when we went into those wars, and we lost their fear when they started to realize our military was pretty tapped out. And now, our economy, the world's economy, is down the toilet.

No election is simply going to fix all this instantaneously by magic.  But the wrong result will make it worse. So it matters. And until it's over and decided, I'm going to be nervous about how it will turn out.

Strange Days Indeed

It is, I think you will admit, a strange day indeed when we can look at the major US market indexes closing the day down 3-3.5% and call that a good thing; and look at the plummet in oil prices and strengthening of the dollar and call that a bad thing.

And yet, that's where we find ourselves today. Friday in Asia was a financial bloodbath, with the Nikkei (Japan) and Heng Seng (Hong Kong SAR) giving up 9.6% and 8.3% respectively before the opening of US markets. Overnight futures trading for the Dow and S&P had to be halted until the opening bells because they hit the "limit down" thresholds. Everyone expected today to be another dramatic crash in the US, as well.

In the end, despite a pessimistic start, bargain hunting, contrarian investing, and G-d knows what else kept the day's losses on the Dow 30 to 3.6%, S&P to 3.5% and NASDAQ to 3.2%.

The market continues to slide despite the thawing of the credit markets--they're not yet fluid but they've at least moved from pack-ice to slush. The problem now is that frostbite has already taken its toll. What we're seeing now, to use a somewhat graphic metaphor, is the sloughing off of flesh killed by the cold.


You see, public companies tend to only react to thinks in quarterly bursts. That's when they have to post their financials, and so that's when they tend to make big pronouncements to go along with those financials. A company that's doing well, and expects to keep on doing well, will post its massive profit and announce how it intends to build on its success. A company that's doing poorly will announce its painful loss and follow up with what it intends to do to return to profitability.


Well, there have been a lot of losses to go around, this quarter. Banks, of course, are hosed. The automobile industry, as I've described in the past, was already reeling from oil prices killing demand for their biggest sellers, and then further crushed from several directions by the credit freeze. Manufacturing in general is falling off the rails (and it wasn't really doing all that well to begin with due to over a decade of open-market, free-trade policy, which predates Bush, lest you forget and blame the shrub for everything).

Then there are the job numbers. Unemployment stands at a nationwide average of 6.1%, which is hardly dire by 1930s standards but is well above what we've gotten used to. Many of those corporate earnings announcements came coupled with announcements of layoffs, which means the only direction that number is going is up.  Even privately held Chrysler chose to join the herd and make an announcement that its cutting 25% of its salaried staff. And despite good numbers from Apple, Google and Microsoft, Big Tech is not immune: Yahoo! announced a big layoff, too.


Even in the best of times, which not even the most contrarian pundit is prepared to suggest these are, announcements like these could cost the Dow 3% or so. So in the end, the fact that we held to only a "normal" fall-off for the day, compared to what happened elsewhere, is definitely good news.


***


Meanwhile, oil is way, way down compared not only to the stratospehric highs of the summer, but the prices we'd seen for the last couple of years. Along with it  has fallen the price of gasoline--I could have paid $2.29 in Saint Paul this afternoon, for example, except that I filled up yesterday at $2.39, same station.

The dollar, in turn, is strengthening after a long decline. That should be good, right?


Wrong.


The strengthening dollar is the easier one to explain. The dollar is not getting stronger because our economy is so great, because of course, our economy is in tatters just like everyone else's. The dollar is getting stronger because other countries are faring even worse, and their currencies are reflecting it. The currency markets are basically saying that, even now, when the US has demonstrated massive national fiscal irresponsibility and helped to trigger the crisis that's got everyone in a panic, the dollar, and various dollar-denominated assets, are the best of a bad lot.


So basically, the dollar is stronger because the currency system is all interlinked instead of being based on a common, independent standard like gold or silver, and thus, it's all relative.


The price of oil crashing is a bit more of a mixed blessing than truly a bad thing, because it means that those of us who aren't feeling too panicked or too strapped for cash to drive anywhere are paying far less at the pump.

But it's not an unalloyed good thing, I assure you. Because aside from the first order reaction of, "Yay, I can fill my Prius up for less than $40!", the effects, and causes, of oil's decline are something to worry about.

First, effect. You see, many of the OPEC countries--and I'll grant you at the outset that if it weren't for the way the world economy is all interwingled, we might not care so much--many of the OPEC countries depend upon oil selling at or above a particular price in order to balance their budgets. Saudi Arabia, for example, needs oil above $55/barrel; Iran needs $90/barrel and is therefor already hurting. It's currently in the mid-60s, and despite the cut in production announced yesterday, still falling.


Now, cause. Perhaps more important (and more deserving of sympathy) than what the drop in oil prices means for the producing countries, is what it says about the consuming countries, which is that their economies are all, universally, so far down the shitter the world market is suddenly drowning in surplus oil.

From a summer spent facing the reality (and it is a reality, folks) of Peak Oil, we're now facing a winter of severe discontent in which people aren't buying much gasoline, not because it's too expensive, but because they're terrified of spending money...or no longer have any to spend!

***

Lastly, because we're so close to the election, I can't resist a bit of politics as well.

Y'all know that hoping for Mr Obama to pull off not just a victory, but a significant, unassailable victory; one that will be immune to electoral shenanigans like the one that Mr Gore suffered. I don't want a victory that hangs on the chads of few thousand provisional ballots. I want to see a mandate.

But we all have to be prepared right now for one absolutely guaranteed true thing: on 5 November, we will wake up to a financial mess as ugly as it was the day before. On 21 January 2009, when Mr Obama is, I hope, firmly ensconced in office, the world will still very likely be in turmoil. The mere fact of Obama's election and inauguration will not magically make everything better overnight. It took, depending on how you want to look at it, anywhere from 8 to 30 years for this current disaster to overtake us. Today's state of affairs is not merely the work of the monkey currently masquerading as President, but of his three predecessors, including, let's all remember, Democrat Bil Clinton, all of whom followed fiscal policies that contributed to the mess.

It will take a long time to repair the damage. While I don't want to say, "never", it's very unlikely that we'll see a spontaneous miracle happen that fixes all the problems and returns us instantaneously to prosperity.

What we can hope for, what I do hope for, is clear-headed thinking to examine and disentangle the knotty skeins of the problem, and provide confident leadership as we move forward. We need steady hands at the rudder. I believe, I hope, Mr Obama offers that, and equally to the point, I have not seen any sign that Mr McCain does.

Short Take: Powell endorses Obama

Retired General Colin Powell endorsed Senator Obama today on Meet the Press.

This is not a huge surprise, perhaps, to anyone with a long enough memory to remember that Powell is only a recent Republican, choosing a party officially in the run up to the 2000 election after years as an official independent. Powell has always been opposed to the neoconservative strain of the Republican Party, which is one of the reasons he's no longer Secretary of State to George W. Bush.

Powell expressed concern about the conduct of McCain's campaign, McCain's erratic handling of the economic crisis, and his choice of Palin as reasons why he couldn't endorse McCain.

The Week in Review

There hasn't really been all that much that's inexplicable this week. The stock markets have been wildly variable, but in a time of uncertainty and turmoil, that's to be expected. The markets are ultimately made up of people; the people are wound pretty tight; so any news, good or bad, results in a wild swing up or down as people respond with either sadness or euphoria.

 In response to one of my earlier stock-market-focused posts, my friend Ian (and I've scapegoated him on this one before) retorted that the markets are not the economy. And, as I later pointed out, he's absolutely right. The markets are merely one facet of the economy.

What makes obsessive focus on the stock markets so attractive is that we know within seconds when they change. It used to be that public market data was delayed 15-20 minutes if you weren't out on the trading floor in person, but that's no longer true. You can pull up the Wall Street Journal's web page, click on the header link to the market data chart, and watch the numbers change by the minute if you're so inclined, now, and they're up-to-date, without delay.

So it gives us a sense that we know exactly what's going on, at any given moment. We can watch the roller coaster and think we know where it's going.

But sometimes, the real economy is actually ahead of the curve. Which brings us to an interesting bit of news that slipped past most of the media this week. You see, the September retail numbers came in--that is, the comparison of same-store sales from month to month and year to year--this week. And they were awful. really, hideously awful. That part isn't a surprise.

The surprise is that they started to crash before the crisis hit. Well before. They'd actually been sliding since July. September started out awful for retail and only got worse. But because we only get those statistics two weeks after the month is over, and not on a day to day basis, it's more difficult to watch. There's no bouncing ball to follow.

In short: the "real" economy, what the candidates have been obsessively macro-ing as "Main Street"--really is pretty thoroughly screwed up, and it's not the stock market that's tanked it. Rather, both are being tanked by the same underlying cause, the credit crunch and the general loss of confidence in every aspect of the economy.

***

Meanwhile, the last of the debates was this week. I have one friend who insists that McCain won, because he stayed on the attack and kept Obama on the defensive.

I can't disagree more.

McCain stayed on the attack, and in the process looked and sounded drunk and belligerent. Note that I do not suggest he actually was either drunk or drugged, only that he did not sound, to my ears, like he was a coherent, decisive leader. He sounded like an angry old man grasping for control.

Obama, on the other hand, remained absolutely cool in the face of all of McCain's attacks. Unruffled, unflappable. He answered every challenge. Sometimes he changed the subject--every politician does this--but he never lost his cool. He never ceased to give the impression that he was already in control and therefore didn't need to grasp for anything.

If I had any lingering doubt about which one of them I want answering the big red phone, the third debate dispelled it. I want the man who stays calm and thoughtful in a crisis, not the man who feels a need to lash out to make a point.

Debate Round-up

I did wind up watching all but the first minute or three of the debate in real time. Notes taken on the fly appear below.

General thoughts: Palin was well coached. She did not come across as dumb. She came across as holding the McCain neocon line firmly, but she did not drool on herself or fumble for answers. She did play what, thanks to my friend Teffan, I can call the Barbie card, putting on a bit of a giddy delivery in her manner--not her words, mind you, but her manner. Teffan and I are actually of opposite minds on this one. I think she's spent her life training herself to appear cute and harmless to win her way up in a male-dominated hierarchy. Teffan thinks she was coached to go after female sympathies. Either way, I think the Barbie-mode was my biggest disappointment. I didn't expect to agree with her, after all.

Biden spent a lot of the debate not sounding particularly excited or exciting. As the debate progressed, he got more animated. This was key. We need non-zombies, and for a moment I was wondering if his brains had been eaten. But no, he woke up eventually. He managed to avoid anger for the most part, though, which was really key. He was respectful, throughout, despite temptation. Post-debate the commentators on ABC noted that Biden even resisted the temptation to correct her on the name of the current commander in Iraq.

This was not, I repeat not, a slam dunk for Biden, not because he was bad, but because Palin was better than anyone expected. She held her own. Coached or not, she held her own. The whole debate was actually much better than anyone expected and, apparently, much better than last week's Presidental debate (which I didn't watch).

I will be surprised if McCain-Palin don't get a bounce off of this.

• Palin looks downright smug. As she pimps McCain (which I suppose is part of her job) and make her ticket sound like superheroes, she has this smug, insulting smile on her face. Maybe that's just how her face looks naturally--I haven't paid enough attention--but it's not at all clear to me what she has to be smug about.
• Palin has been well coached. Anyone who was hoping to watch her drool all over herself like she reportedly did on Couric's show will be disappointed.
• Palin plays the "hockey mom" card almost as often as she mentions McCain.
• Yes, I'm focusing on Palin, because for good or ill, her performance is the one that's interesting. That may be because she's the one I disagree with, of course. But I just don't find Biden all that remarkable. Not boring, just...expected. We really didn't really know what to expect from Palin.
• Ah, the sectional interests card, whining about "east coast" lawmakers standing in the way of energy-producing states' ruining their environment....er...drilling for oil.
• Climate change denial! Well, denial that humans are affecting climate. Of course, I do the same thing sometimes, so I can't blame her for that one, I suppose.
• 30m in. The smug smile is gone. I wonder if she got coached at some point about that and remembered to moderate her expression.
• 32m: Ooooo. Biden just suggested drumming up an industry we could export technology to clean up China. As someone who has seen first-hand what a disaster the Chinese environment is, that makes me happy.
• 33m: Palin admits outright that she believes in "Drill, baby, drill!"
• 34m: "Safe, environmentally friendly drilling offshore..." G-d, I wonder if she really believes that.
• 36m: Biden clearly in favour of same-sex benefits, declares it will be federal policy as much as possible under Obama/Biden. Brave! 
• 37m: Palin, of course, defends het marriage, but it is worth noting that Alaska provides same-sex benefits at the state level. 
• Oh, G-d...the war...Palin defending the surge, of course.
• "With all due respect, I didn't hear a plan". Bravo, Biden.
• Also Bravo Biden: McCain also voted against the bill Obama was accused of voting against.
• Palin plays the "surrender" card. Surprise (not).
• Hate to say it: brava Palin: Biden just defended Obama voting against funding, but Biden voted FOR it. 
• Biden stresses Pakistan's danger. Clearest case anyone's made in a while, but probably much too late.
• Palin says 'nookyoolar'. Who's surprised?
• Palin stresses Iran danger, pillories Obama for being willing to talk to Ahmedinijad. On the other hand, while she can't say nuclear, she can say Ahmedinijad.
• Palin gets a chance to name-drop getting to talk to Kissinger.
• Oh, dear. Israel. Of course someone had to mention Israel.
• Palin pushing two-state, of course, defending Rice's efforts. Wants embassy in Jerusalem.
• Biden also defends Rice(!) Not the administration, but Rice, particularly her recent efforts. But pillories the administration otherwise, pointing out Hamas' success in Palestine, Hizbollah in Lebanon.
• Oh, G-d, she said "maverick" again. But she's got Biden on the whole "looking back" thing.
• OK, now Biden's getting energetic. Good. Now he's interesting. Stressing how McCain won't change policies, won't bring real reform.
• ZING: McCain voted against the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Forgot about that. 
• Biden gets a chance to shine in favour of intervention in Darfur &c.
• Palin gets Biden on the flip-flop on voting for the war authorization but now opposing the war. Claims having led plans to divest Alaska's investment in Sudan.
• "John McCain, who knows how to win a war..." He does? We lost Viet Nam, remember?
• Nothing really interesting from either candidate on the question, "What would you do differently if you wind up as President?"
• Smug smile's back. 
• Whoa...did Sarah just diss No Child Left Behind? Wow.
• Those can't be Biden's real teeth.
• Palin pushing for a stronger role as VP. 
• Biden: "Vice President Cheney has been possibly the most dangerous Vice President in history..."
• Biden's getting tired, slurring a bit. He's also actually wrong about the VPs role. John Adams, for example, was much more active in the Senate than most modern VPs.
• Palin goes Barbie and pulls the just-plain-folks card again. And she's wandered off topic and partially off planet. Either she's getting tired, too, or she knows she only has 10 minutes yet and needs to pimp the ticket more. She completely avoided the question about what her Achilles' Heel might be.
• Biden just choked up a bit when referring obliquely to Palin's challenge with her Down's Syndrome child. I'd like to believe that was for real. Unlike his teeth.
• Sarah, STOP SAYING MAVERICK! G-d, where's an anvil when you need one...
• Ooooo! Biden's saying what I just said! Well, not literally, but he's going after the "maverick" thing. Good. About time.
• "Up there in Alaska..." see? See how much of an outsider I am? We do things differently up there! Yeah. Whatever.
• Can someone help me verify Palin's claim to have appointed across party lines?
• Second time Biden's called this the most important election of our lives. He may be right, at least, for anyone who couldn't vote in 1932.
• Post-debate, they talk privately, off-mic. Looks amicable, probably even was. This was the first time they met.
• Baby! Within minutes off the stage, she's got her baby in her arms. Almost certainly genuine, but also just looks good.

Short Take; FDIC asks to boost its per-depositor ceiling

In one of the few moves that are concretely, definitely, obviously aimed at making you and me, the average schmo on the street a little more confident that we're not going to be standing in lines for soup, the several people, including both candidates, have spent today babbling about the idea of the FDIC raising its per-depositor ceiling from $100,000 to $250,000.

Now, the word via the NyTimes is that the FDIC are themselves asking for that authority.

More later tonight or tomorrow.