A Bresh of Freth Air

I actually thought this debate was a tie. Obama dodged a lot of questions and gave a lot of stale answers. He didn't respond nearly as forcefully as he could have to a lot of McCain smears. He seemed more nervous, tighter, and less presidential than in the first two debates. McCain was even worse; he blinked more than any human has ever blinked, he sneered at women's "health" when it came to abortion, he got Obama's health plan wrong and looked astonished when Obama smacked him down.

But who cares what I think. The fact is, Obama is safer giving canned Clinton-in-1992 answers than telling the country the hard truth, which is that we won't be able to balance the budget soon (thanks to the financial crisis), and that his health plan is basically going to get downsized into insignificance. And in addition to those canned answers, he gave some really good ones. Which is more than I can say of McCain.

In any case, the polls disagree with my assessment, and that's a good thing. Snap polls have Obama winning by 27 to 31 percent. They have Obama as friendlier and showing stronger leadership. They all show a decline in favorability for McCain and a boost for Obama. Here's more reactions. Wow.

Game, set, but not match. McCain just flailed, grimaced, and blinked his way through three straight debates, and now there are no big events left before Election Day. His "campaign suspension" was a disaster, Palin is hated by pretty much everyone who doesn't sexually fantasize about her, the Ayers story didn't take, the "Barney Frank caused the financial crisis" line didn't take, and the ACORN story will not take. McCain is running for the incumbent party during a major economic crisis and a disastrous war, following 8 years of negative income growth, spiraling debt, and policy disasters under the auspices of the least popular president in the nation's history.

But Obama is black (well, half anyway). So this thing will not be over until the fat lady sings, by which I mean until Fox News calls the election for the Democrat. If Obama loses now, there was just no way a black person of any kind, under any circumstances, could win the U.S. presidency in 2008. Racism is now truly McCain's one and only hope.