1. He is “The Messiah”

2. He sinks 18ft jumpshots with ease

3. He is left handed (like I am)

4. He gave a shout-out to the Apollo space program.

5. He knows that bubblesort isn’t an optimal sort algorithm.

6. He supports the Wolfpack.

QED.

Schieffer asked again for the candidates to get real and talk about what they are going to cut. Barack Obama dodged this question as he has always done, throwing in one tiny vague specific regarding subsidies to insurance companies. McCain finally got around to doing better, mentioned 3 or 4 specifics but not really an a cohesive view.

Other than Bob, it was clear that Jim the Plumber won the debate. It’s likely this debate will be known as the “Jim the Plumber” debate. And you know? I don’t think Jim is even registered to vote.

It’s a disgrace for McCain to continue to bring up points like the $42,000 tax increase that Obama ‘voted’ for, despite it being universally refuted since the first time it was mentioned. But facts and reality aren’t going to get in the way of McCain’s campaign — if we say it enough it’ll become true!

Obama remained cool and collected. I noticed that Obama preferred to look straight into the camera and speak to the American viewers, whereas McCain preferred to look at Bob Schieffer.

One final point - anyone notice Obama using a ballpoint pen while McCain wielded a Sharpie? Hmmmmm….telling, no?

Although the mainstream news outlets are hesistant to discuss this, it’s becoming extremely likely that Obama has enough electoral votes to win this thing. It’s not so much of a guarantee on Obama’s part — it’s that for McCain to win he has to win so many swing states and that probability is low. I think there are signs that the McCain campaign is also losing the momentum they gained after Palin’s selection for VP. They don’t have the enthusiastic support of the highbrow conservative pundits, and they are dominating the news cycle with either angry crowds or attacks on Obama’s connections (Bill Ayers). Inside the campaign, there is confusion and intense debate both over who to attack next and what message should they be sending to the American people. But the latter is the real victim - amidst all this chaos and confusion, the American voter isn’t hearing about John McCain’s vision for America.

Reports from the field are showing stark differences in the ground game and GOTV (get out the vote) efforts between the two campaigns, with the edge towards Obama. The disparity between advertisment spending is almost comical. There is a lot of flak in the Republican circles about the shady voter registration group ACORN (some of which is spilling over to the MSM), but I think it’s too early to tell how this will play out. Americans are too worried about their plunging 401(k)s and bills to try to understand how a group they’ve never heard before is destroying America.

So what recourse does McCain have at this point? I’ve only been ‘politically aware’ since the 2000 election, where it was the ultimate nailbiter: 271 Bush vs 267 Gore. In 2004 there was no clear sense of who might prevail, with Bush finally winning 286 to 261. In contrast, FiveThirtyEight is predicting Obama winning with possibly 360 to 178.  There has been some whispering about McCain silently conceding the national election and focus more on helping at risk Republican senators to buffer against a near super-majority for the Democrats in the Senate. Could this legitimately happen? How would the Republican electorate respond to such a tactic?

7. Play with other people’s money. If, as I said, the people at that meeting were very smart, why did they act in ways that seem so foolish? Part of the answer, I suspect, is that they are employees, not principals; they are trying to make money and careers for themselves. In that position, it is hard to take a long view: In the long run, even if you aren’t dead, you probably won’t be working in the same place. It is also difficult for someone managing other people’s money to take an independent line. To be wrong when everyone else is wrong is not such a terrible thing: You may lose a bonus, but probably not your job. On the other hand, to be wrong when everyone else is right… So everyone focuses on the same short-term numbers, tries to ride the trends, and buys the silly economic theory du jour.

Sound familiar?

We may be entering into RACISM IS OVER territory here soon.

About 2,500 flee chemical leak in Pennsylvania

PETROLIA, Pennsylvania (AP) — A corrosive liquid overflowed from a tank at a chemical plant in western Pennsylvania on Saturday, evaporating into a toxic cloud that snaked along the ground and forced about 2,500 people to flee. At least three residents were believed to be injured.

Season 7, Episode 12 of the West Wing, with roughly a month before the election between Matthew Santos (D) and Arnold Vinick (R):

Elections are underway in Kazakhstan, but Russia and China both on the brink of going to war in Central Asia over oil are the least of Bartlet and C.J.’s concerns as they face a nuclear reactor in California on the verge of a meltdown. While agonizing over the decisions over whether to evacuate nearby citizens and to release radioactive steam into the atmosphere, the Santos and Vinick campaigns stare each other down, trying to avoid being the first to turn the crisis into a political issue – all the more complex as decades ago, Vinick lobbied for the plant’s construction. When the news comes out, the election becomes, in Josh’s words, “too close to call.”

Too surreal….

But over the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare….

Over the past 15 years, the same argument has been heard from a thousand politicians and a hundred television and talk-radio jocks. The nation is divided between the wholesome Joe Sixpacks in the heartland and the oversophisticated, overeducated, oversecularized denizens of the coasts.

The political effects of this trend have been obvious. Republicans have alienated the highly educated regions — Silicon Valley, northern Virginia, the suburbs outside of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. The West Coast and the Northeast are mostly gone. [emphasis mine]

As Brooks describes, these were tactical decisions made for short-term political gain — about creating wedges, reliable voting blocs that could tip the scales where needed. But it is having very real and practical consequences:

The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community.

Conservatives are as rare in elite universities and the mainstream media as they were 30 years ago. The smartest young Americans are now educated in an overwhelmingly liberal environment.

I think the key phrase is here: “What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole.”

Am I highlighting this because I consider myself part of this ‘intellectual’ class? Yes. I was fortunate to be raised by educated parents, who valued education. I surrounded myself with friends who were both intellectually curious and honest. (And now I’m living the stereotypical life of a Starbucks-drinking-NPR listening-treehugging-indie-music/film-enjoying-left-coast-effete…still working on the prius)

I think we’ve seen the consequences of leadership that is devoid of intellectual rigor. Katrina, Iraq, the economy, Harriet Miers, Lebanon, Afghanistan, need I continue? Not to say that these leaders lacked pedigree. But simply pointing to a diploma on the wall is a cheap cop-out compared to actually examining people (as anyone who has been through college knows first hand). I believe people who are intellectually curious, who are deliberate (but not to a fault), and who are competent are best suited to the inconceivably difficult job of running a country. It takes a appropriately developed mind to better handle changes, and this is what I ask of our leaders, because no one knows what the future might bring.

On a personal note, I know people who I believe have disassociated themselves from today’s Republican party primarily because of this unfortunate fervor of anti-intellectualism.

Can the Republican party redeem its once-held position as a “party of ideas”? And if so, how? Better hurry, because the hole is only getting deeper.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

We never thought we would defend the Frank-Dodd legislation, which we bitterly opposed last summer. But it looks downright prudent compared to what McCain has proposed. McCain’s plan is a full bailout for lenders, and it cannot do much more than the Frank-Dodd bill without letting “ruthless borrowers” and other reckless types off the hook. It is time to acknowledge that the government has gone as far as it can without creating a level of moral hazard that is unacceptable. Give Frank-Dodd — and the Paulson plan — time to work.

The editorial lists the numerous ways that the existing legislation, passed by Democrats Frank and Dodd, is better than McCain’s plan. Sure enough, it seems that a day after the debate the McCain camp is stating a different solution. This is supposed to calm voters into trusting you with economic leadership?

But man: the conservative bastion National Review coming out so unequivocably against the GOP candidate on an issue….I’m actually a little impressed.