Bloodless Coup

I am still inclined to think that it was a gut-level impulse to avoid/evade/buy more time before debating Obama, plain and simple. I don't think there was any sophistication to it.

A lot of what McCain has said and done in the last few days looks like panic to me. I don't understand why more of his partisans aren't concerned -- maybe they are, privately?

If there's no voted-upon deal, and I can't imagine there will be although I modestly expect another "agreement in prinviple," I fail to see how he can show up. He bet the ranch on this, and no matter how ludicrous he already looks (blowing off Letterman to go back to D.C., and then meeting with Couric, having dinner and sleeping in NYC), he has said in unequivocal terms that he will not show in the absence of a deal. Of course, predicating anything on the assumption that his statements will in any way cohere at this point is probably foolish.

I'd say Obama "won". I say it b/c 1) that's what the early polls say, b/c 2) McCain's behind and this was supposedly his strongest topic - yet he didn't seem to capitalize on those supposed strengths in ways that marked him as clearly superior to Obama, and given the polls he needed to make more of a mark, and 3) independents seem to really dislike it when the candidates insult one another, and McCain was more the testy, mocking guy last night.

I'm eagerly awaiting Biden-Palin on Thurs. night.

Others have also been noting what we talked about last night, i.e. that McCain couldn't look at Obama.

I'm with Fallows.