Bob Reich has an interesting theory about the continuing stock market cataclysm: the market has now realized that people aren't able to pay off their credit card bills, which means a second pillar of our national fantasy--first mortgages, now plastic--is crumbling.

It seems to me that one excellent point that Sarah Palin made in the vice presidential debate was that people needed to be more responsible about maxing out on their credit cards. This was unique in her history on the national stage, to be sure: a moment that not only was coherent, but also apt.

"a guy of the street" than a guy of the gutter.

But seriously, folks, I'm beginning to worry about the level of craziness on the Republican side, the over-the-top, stampede-the-crowd statements by everyone from McCain on down, the vehemence of the crowds that McCain and Palin are drawing with people shouting "Kill him" and "He's a terrorist" and "Off with his head."

Watch the tape of the guy screaming, "He's a terrorist!" McCain seems to shudder at that, he rolls his eyes... and I thought for a moment he'd admonish the man. But he didn't. And now he's selling the Ayres non-story full-time. Yes, yes, it's all he has. True enough: he no longer has his honor. But we are on the edge of some real serious craziness here and it would be nice if McCain did the right thing and told his more bloodthirsty supporters to go home and take a cold shower. But McCain hasn't done the right thing all year. His campaign is appalling, as the New York Times editorial board said today--and more, it is a national disgrace.

And more, from Greg Sargent at TPM

That's why they call them swing voters.

When I wrote about the women's vote in dead-tree TIME a few weeks back, in the days after the GOP convention, our polling was showing that there was indeed a decided "Palin effect." John McCain and Barack Obama were running dead-even among women voters overall, and among older, non-college-educated white women--who are classic swing voters, and a key demographic that both parties are watching closely this year--McCain enjoyed a commanding 18-point advantage.

But no longer. In the latest TIME poll, which is part of our "How America Decides" series (it is featured in the upcoming dead-tree issue, though I don't think there's a link on TIME.com yet), Obama has opened up a 19-point lead (56-37%) over McCain among likely female voters. He even leads narrowly (48-45%) among white women--a group that George Bush won by 11 points in 2004. Among married women, whom Bush won 57-42% over John Kerry, Obama is ahead 51-42%. Our pollster Mark Schulman notes that no Democratic presidential candidate in recent history has had numbers that strong with married women and white women.

Our poll, by the way, was conducted October 3-6, among a random sample of 1,053 likely voters, and has a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points. *

UPDATE: Commenter Depressed by Tribal Warfare points out something that should have occurred to me when I posted that description of the poll.

The margin of error for the poll overall (men and women, with a sample size 0f 1,053 likely voters age 18 and older throughout America) is +/-3. Because these subsets (women, white women, married women) have smaller sample sizes, the MOE for them is greater, though I don't have that figure precisely. Also, commenter Trifecta asks for the topline result of the entire poll. In the overall poll, Obama leads McCain 50-44%, which is pretty much unchanged from the previous week.

And while we're at it: The sample's partisan distribution was 37% Democrats, 29% Republicans, 27% independents. Likely voters are identified based on their registration status, interest in the campaign, self-reported likelihood to vote, and previous voting record, unless they are new registrants. Those who have already "early voted" are included in the likely voter pool.

Republicans seem to be bringing up abortion a lot lately -- I suppose it's one issue that will turn out the Evangelicals for whom the ticket would ideally be reversed. Palin, of course, is the ideal spokesperson for this message so I was expecting something fiery from her appearance on the Laura Ingraham show today. Sure enough, Ingraham asked her what's the "first thing" she would do, as vice-president, to promote "a culture of life." She did one of her verbal curlicues and I wasn't taking note, but, essentially she said she would be a role model. "My family and I can be an example" of "not just talking the talk but walking the walk."

Now, I'm not strongly pro-life myself, but if I was, I think this answer would be kinda unsatisfactory, huh? Heck, even if I weren't strongly pro-life, just kinda pro-life, I think I would be disturbed that my nominee has, apparently, no idea how she might prevent abortions from happening. Then again, if I were 17, I would be super excited to follow her family's example when it comes to teen sex! (If not the family planning part... which, hey, is a way to prevent abortions!)

Gallup has some interesting new data. And in the dead-tree TIME that hits newsstands tomorrow, our colleague David Von Drehle's cover story has yet another perspective, this one from the ground in Missouri:

I soon gathered that six of the eight adults standing in that driveway planned to vote for Obama in November. Their support ranged from enthusiastic to reluctant. And of course, there's nothing scientific about one driveway. But I heard similar things throughout my trip. Among white voters, Obama appeared to be rising on a pile of empty wallets. Many folks in Lincoln County shared that impression.

"Who do you think will win around here?" I asked.

"Obama," Robbie Haggard answered flatly, and several others agreed.

"But Missouri's always been Republican," Pyle protested.

"I think Missouri's had about enough," Holly Haggard said.

Some hard data support that reaction. A recent poll of 1,024 Missouri voters, sponsored by Time and CNN, found that Obama's standing in the Show-Me State has improved significantly in the past month. A must-win state for John McCain's campaign--once considered fairly safe--is now a virtual tie, with the momentum going in Obama's direction. That's not something that can be accomplished solely with the support of liberals and minorities--not in Missouri. Here in the borderland between North and South, between East and West, between rich and poor, between city and farm, any would-be President must stay competitive among white voters of modest and middle incomes.

There's still time to change again, for doubts to resurface, for suspicions to harden. And voters may say one thing to pollsters and do another in the voting booth. Yet at this late stage of the campaign, after dozens of interviews across this toss-up state, evidence suggests that the issue that once seemed as if it would dominate this election — Obama's race — is not consuming the people who will actually decide.

Andrew Sullivan doubts the McCain campaign's rationale for its wall-to-wall, triple-ply ugliness and I agree.

I mean, say Obama had accepted McCain's town hall invitation...and say Obama had cleaned McCain's clock as efficiently as he's been doing in the debates...you don't think Steve Schmidt would been scavenging through the sewers as he's doing now in an effort to change the topic?

"Father" as in "my dad." Attentive readers may recall that Samuel H. Cox is a famous actuary. After listening to a McCain staffer tell a colleague how much better off he'd be under McCain's health care plan than he is now with a joint union "flex plan," I realized that I had been basically assuming that McCain's plan was stupid, but I didn't know why. So I asked the nearest expert available. (Turns out he's not!) His response is after the jump, but, first, full disclosure:

Yes, you can post it but I want to explain my expertise, just so you know. I am a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, and so I have passed professional exams on health systems. I have not been doing actuarial work in the health area for a long time. (Actually, the last I remember is individual health insurance policy development at Pan American Life - when we lived in New Orleans.) I am still interested in health care issues, but, for example, I would decline if asked to give expert witness testimony in the health practice area. You can say I am an actuary, but not a health actuary.

Also, McCain once bought him lunch so obviously he can't be trusted.

(more...)

Things are not going so well in Afghanistan.

On why Obama is winning the debates, and the election.

I was doing some cable TV duty last night and had the bad luck to follow a segment about a focus group of voters being dial tested during the debate. Dial groups are bad enough, but actually putting this madness on television as a verdict of some kind is reckless. I said as much at the beginning of my segment. First, the sample from one group is far too small to mean much. Second, turning this voodoo into a television spectacular completely distorts whatever limited research value a group might provide. Research technique is supposed to leave respondents alone and unmolested, not plopped down in front of live TV cameras. No wonder the respondents in these groups are really thinking about their key lighting and asking how you get an agent. Their minds are on anything but what they really think about the candidates.

Dial groups do far more harm than just dumbing down political news coverage. They're also a favorite weapon wielded by television networks and Hollywood studios in their never ending war against creativity. Ken Levine, a great TV comedy writer, has a wonderful piece up on his blog about the horror of dial groups in both politics and Hollywood.