Above: excerpts from Saturday Night Live's recreation of the vice-presidential debate. (The whole thing is here.) Or at least I think this is the spoof version. Hard to tell, sometimes.
Gallup daily tracking poll: Obama 50%, McCain 43%, which is the ninth straight day that Obama has had a statistically significant lead in this poll.
From here on in, it's mudslinging time: following Sarah Palin's weekend accusations that Barack Obama likes "pallin' around with terrorists," the McCain campaign's down-and-dirty tactics continue: the Alaska governor brings up pastor Jeremiah Wright again, and a new ad labels Obama "dangerous" and "dishonourable" on foreign policy. (The treacherous Obama quote that's ripped out of context in the ad was actually delivered in the context of a call for more troops in Afghanistan, but never mind about that, there's an election to win!)
The Obama campaign fights back, hoping that McCain's involvement in the Keating Five savings-and-loan scandal will tarnish the Republican right back. Unfortunately, it's slightly tricky to explain in a 20-second ad, so Team Obama is due to release a documentary video later today instead. They do not appear to realise that documentaries are elitist. [KeatingEconomics.com]
Former Hillary Clinton strategist Howard Wolfson, a longtime Obama sceptic, confidently asserts now that the Republicans' latest tactics won't work: the economic meltdown has decisively made this a "big election", not a small one. "McCain's smallball will not work. This race will not be decided by lipsticked pigs. And John McCain can not escape that reality." The excellent political numbercrunching blog FiveThirtyEight.com concurs. [The New Republic]
On the subject of "dangerous" foreign-policy views: does Palin think Afghanistan is a "neighboring country" to America? [Reuters]
If they could, 59% of the American electorate would replace the entire Congress. What? This is the gratitude the nation's lawmakers get for giving Wall Street hundreds of billions of -- oh, yeah, fair enough, actually. [Rasmussen Reports]
