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.

He was against the debate before he was for it.

Quoted: Senator John McCain reversed his earlier call to postpone the debate so he could participate in the Congressional talks over the $700 billion bailout plan for financial firms.

Quoted: But the fact is that Obama is in a stronger position now than he was immediately before the conventions.

Fascinating stuff -- less than 20 minutes, but well paced and very thought provoking.

Quoted: Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we're left, right or center. In this eye-opening ...

Heh ... h/t Tom.

click to play

Looks like someone forgot to send Huckabee his talking points! Hopefully he'll soon be reprimanded for trying to lend some common sense to this ridiculousness.

Quoted: The Sarah Palin pick allows John McCain to run the way he wants to — not as the old goat running against the upstart, but as the crusader for virtue against the forces of selfishness.

Quoted: Two officers had even infiltrated the farmer’s inner circle, obtaining for themselves samples of his product. Lab tests confirmed their suspicions. It was raw milk. The unpasteurized stuff. Now the time had come to take him down.

Applying rigorous baseball analysis methodologies to politics ... a project by Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus. Political sabermetrics, basically.