A President for All of Us, Not Just the Top 10 Percent

Yes, We Can!

Hope for change.

Change that matters.

Gloves Off

Tune in tonight to watch the second debate between McCain and Obama beginning 9 p.m. Eastern. The format will be a town-hall style meeting with 80 uncommitted voters on stage with the candidates. 

Will this style help McCain? He seems to love talking before a live audience. It might be his best forum. The media has hyped his success in this format so much that you wonder just how Obama can keep up.

Oh yeah, there's a little financial crisis on Wall Street, and the credit crisis is spreading. Maybe voters will remember MCain's involvement in the Keating Five savings-and-loan scandal.

Even though Obama doesn't have the same folksy manner of McCain, Obama knows how to inspire a crowd too. I expect Obama to stay focused on the issues. I don't expect to hear smear tactics from Obama, he knows voters are more concerned about the economy.

Thanks to a tip from NYTimes.com, check out the YouTube clip below about McCain and his beloved town hall format.

She Winks, She Smiles, She Flirts, She Plans to Change the Constitution

Things that made me wonder during the VP debate...

• In the past Gov. Sarah Palin has been criticized for repeatedly commenting that she can see Russia from her house in Alaska (see The New Yorker cover above) so I would think she would really want to get her foreign policy stuff right. Does she know that the top American commander in Afghanistan is Gen. David D. McKiernan and is not "McClellan" as she says in the debate?
• Palin likes to wink a lot. Does Palin suffer from an eye twitch?
• Palin ignored the questions moderator Gwen Ifill asks and instead looks directly into the camera and delivers one canned line after another. 
  
• When Palin says over and over "darn right" or "you betcha" I wondered if this is really how she learned to talk in a debate? At this week's debate camp was she coached on folksy expressions?
• Where exactly is "Eye-ran?"
• She has said that Iran must not even be allowed to have nuclear energy. But isn't Iran a member of the IAEA and a signatory to the NPT? 
• She called Iran's President Ahmadinejad "insane." Why did she also repeated mispronounce his name? (She says it incorrectly with a K sound exactly like McCain says it too.)
• Did she ever answer the questions moderator Gwen Ifill asked. Oh yeah, I asked that before.
• Why did Palin say Biden's college teacher wife will "get her reward in heaven" when she knows that Biden's first wife died tragically in a car accident.
• Palin was well-rehearsed. She avoided the use of "um" or "uh." But she didn't seem to be thinking on her feet and responding to a question.
• Does the McCain energy plan really just boil down to "Drill, Baby, drill?" 
• Is Palin too power hungry for the VP slot? Palin mentioned that she wanted to take a new look at the US Constitution and make some revisions specifically in Articles I and II that are explicit in enumerating and limiting the powers of the Executive, including the Vice President.