Now that the biggest political sideshow of the season is over, the presidential campaign can get down to brass tacks. Palin may have played well with the crazy religious right--who don't care about people being competent because God will take care of everything, but by all indications she has scared the out of independents and Democrats who had considered voting for McCain. That, and the plunging economy and fiscal crisis and you have the Obama surge in the polls. The voters are saying in these polls that for serious times, we need serious people--and they'd be right. McCain,at one time, may have been considered serious--but he gave that up when he picked Palin and engaged in relentless fabrications in order to move up in the polls. Well, we see the results of that strategy: utter failure.

One more word on Palin: she is truly George W. Bush in a skirt. Blissfully ignorant, intellectually incurious (can't even name a newspaper you read, not one!?), convinced that America was put on Earth by God so that we don't have to ackowledge the existence or importance of other nations or peoples......talk about a scary worldview. And now, post debate, she is attacking Katie Couric for asking tough questions. Biden, in an abundance of caution, didn't even correct her when she, twice, got the name of our commanding general in Afganistan wrong (its McKiernan, not McClellan--who was fired by Lincoln for being slow to attack). McCain lauded her today as somone that millions of American women can look up to. Really? What is she teaching them--that you can not know anything, lie, but still succeed because you are pretty and appear to have nice body? Good message. Hopefully, the current trends will hold (I believe they will) and Barack will blow out the terrible two-some with over 300 EVs.