Quoted: On “Meet the Press,” Colin L. Powell called Barack Obama a “transformational figure” and said that John McCain’s campaign had gone “too far” in its attacks.

I think the Obama camp would have been happy with a split here, but looks like the opening section on the economy tipped it. I wonder if McCain's original goal with the campaign suspension was to delay the foreign policy debate enough that the economic section would be omitted.

Quoted: The CBS poll of undecideds has more confirmatory detail. Obama went from a +18 on "understanding your needs and problems" before the debate to a +56 (!) afterward. And he went from a -9 on "prepared to be president" to a +21.

Quoted: Given the current inefficiencies in our system, the impact of the Obama plan will be profound. Besides the $2,500 savings in medical costs for the typical family, according to our research annual business-sector costs will fall by about $140 billion. Our figures suggest that decreasing employer costs by this amount will result in the expansion of employer-provided health insurance to 10 million previously uninsured people.

Quoted: Therefore, what we should carefully watch for tonight is the tenor of McCain's speech. He's got to reach for independents, and to do that he's got to sound like he's full of practical solutions.