During the debate last night, Senator McCain repeatedly talked directly to some magical blue collar hero named Joe the Plumber. If this "Joe the Plumber" bullshit had any resonance (beyond with pundits who assume viewers and voters are so much dumber than them) it was probably tossed out the window once McCain said "hey Joe, you're rich. Congratulations." He said like at least twice, didn't he? (McCain always repeats his practiced zingers, which is a terrible habit.) Of course only in Matt Drudge's wet dreams did Joe the Plumber resonate with Ohio swing voters to begin with. He's a plumber, sure, respectable blue collar work. But honestly, right now, in this climate, how many voters exactly personally relate to a guy who's planning on buying a business? Oh no, Senator Obama might stop Pete the Locksmith from flipping his house and buying that Land Rover! And that was before it was revealed that Joe the Plumber might be a Republican plant! This Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher already talks like a GOP pundit (he's got the accidental casual racism down!), and his aw shucks willingness to repeat ancient class war talking points to every camera in sight is actually a bit suspicious for a random voter, but the most important thing about Joe Wurzelbacher is his last name: it's the same as the last name of Charles Keating's son-in-law! Keating's son-in-law, Robert Wurzelbacher, served a 40-month prison sentence in 1993 in connection with Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan collapse. Since then, who knows what he's been up to, but there is a Robert Wurzelbacher who lives just outside of Cincinnati, owns a wood company, and donates to Republicans. Meanwhile there is a Joseph Wurzelbacher who owns a painting company in Cincinnati! Along with a septic tank repair company! These dots were all connected by a DailyKos diarist, who has no proof that Joe and Robert Wurzelbacher are related, but, you know, it's suspicious. The Wurzelbvacher connection was also made, amusingly, by this right-wing satirical blogger. But regardless of whether Joe the Plumber is a Republican plant or not, one thing is for certain: he's not actually voting for McCain. Because the asshole isn't actually registered. Update: Joe the Plumber doesn't pay taxes. At all. He is registered to vote though! But if there's a typo in his registration, which seems possible, his provisional ballot will probably be thrown away. Hah.

The most important thing to remember about tonight's Presidential Debate is that if you want to watch it you'll need to Tivo Project Runway. Also kindly old Bob Sheiffer will moderate and the candidates will be sitting down, at a table. Sheiffer is a genial old Texan who is probably a Republican and therefore is in the tank for McCain but that won't actually make any sort of difference. Barack Obama double-dared John McCain to make Ayers accusations to his face and McCain promised that he would but honestly we won't be surprised if he doesn't bring it up explicitly. The debates exist in their own parallel universe outside the headlines so don't expect too much substantive difference in subjects covered and arguments made. But it still might be better than last week! Because they're sitting down. Debates where the candidates sit at the same table almost always feautre more lively discussion than the boring podium ones. The candidates have a harder time delivering speeches to an audience or to the camera and they sometimes accidentally engage in discussion with each other. Or they just snipe back and forth, like Cheney and John Edwards in 2004. (That debate was awesome. GAY DAUGHTERS FOR EVERYONE!) Who knows what crazy tactic or stunt McCain will try but it will probably fall flat. Obama will be serious and cool like before. If Obama's current lead is momentum than that momentum will increase. If it is a high that will tighten as we get closer to election day (our theory!) it will tighten a bit. And you know even if it is interesting it probably won't "matter" except in the only way the last two debates "mattered": as part of the ritual of finally deciding that one of these jokers will be ok to see on tv for the next four years. The end!!!

The sad thing about tonight's debate is that the candidates will be seated, at a table, so we won't get to see McCain wandering around again. But, you know, he will still be speaking, so we imagine we'll get a couple moments along the lines of the ones collected in this video. It's McCain's Lovable Senior Moments, like when he called a questioner "you little jerk" (funny!) and when Joe Lieberman had to whisper in his ear the difference between Sunnis and Shiites (hilarious!). Intern Stephanie Dooley compiled the clip, so please send your accusations of terrible ageism to her. (Or just get over it!)

The New York Times today runs five—five!—pieces on how many voters have somehow deduced that presidential candidate Barack Obama is a black man. Adam Nagourney reports that Hillary Clinton advisor Harold Ickes (he's also, it should be noted, a former Jesse Jackson aide) "routinely shaved off a point or two" from Obama's poll numbers to account for secret racistness. You can tell he was doing this during the primaries, right? Harold, people who won't vote for Obama because he's black aren't lying to pollsters. Because they sure as hell weren't lying to the Times reporters who went into the field to report on race.

Nationally, Barack Obama is between 5 and 10 points ahead in the polls. In the states defined by Rasmussen as battlegrounds, Obama ranges from a tie in North Carolina (North Carolina!) to slight leads in all the rest of them. Also Bush announced the nationalization of the banks or something today, prompting the Dow to jump in early trading. So Matt Drudge, who controls your news with an iron opera glove, is leading today with the news that ACORN registered Mickey Mouse to vote. Ha ha ha. Honestly, what the hell's the deal with the ACORN story and why are right-wingers already clinging to it like guns and religion? Sigh. We'll try to explain. What is ACORN?? An evil group that exists to organize poor people into a violent militia and overthrow the government via "voting." Or basically a lobbying group for low- and middle-income families, either one. Oh no, lobbyists! Right? ACORN is in some respects a lobbying group like, say, the oil or pharmaceutical lobbies. Except they represent poor people instead of profitable corporations so they're a much less successful lobbying group. What do they do? They started as a radical group dedicated to getting welfare recipients and underemployed non-welfare recipients together to demand socialist things like free lunches for kids and emergency room care. Now they lobby Democrats for terrorist things like raising the minimum wage and forcing the government to subsidize affordable housing. Also they organize voter registration drives. But what about all these crimes they're committing?? ACORN pays local losers in Florida $8 an hour to gather 20 voter registrations a day. So some of these losers are lazy, like all employees, and just make up the registrations. ACORN does try to find these made-up registrations and fire the employees who submit them, but, you know, sometimes they miss a couple. Also the law seems to say that ACORN has to submit all the registrations they gather no matter what, and even though the law is a little bit vague, they're still trying to follow it. Why do Republicans need to attack and delegitimize a damn voter registration drive?? Because a certain amount of passive voter suppression is built in to the Republican campaign strategy. If all the disenfranchised and disenchanted voters were organized and registered and informed, we'd probably be a crazy socialist 10-party country like Italy or something. The GOP engages in active voter suppression—voter ID laws and legal challenges—and the more passive kind built into the democratic process, like engendering cynicism about the democratic process. Obviously convincing the guys who disagree with you to not vote is part of any party's campaign strategy, but the GOP's by necessity targets poor people and minorities, and the vast history of suppressing the votes of poor people and minorities is way grosser than any history of disenfranchising white protestants. To us! Maybe you have some totally oppressed landed gentry in your family tree so you may feel differently. Quite honestly the very heart of the utter bullshitness of this anti-ACORN campaign can be found in one incredibly telling quote from a spokesman for the RNC: "Cairncross accused ACORN of engaging in a 'systematic effort to undermine the election process' through its voter-registration drives." Do you see the problem with that statement? And basically there is a CERTAIN CLASS of Republican voter that does not think that the poors, the Blacks, the homelesses, and so on honestly really deserve the same power to choose our rulers as a guy who's worked his whole life to get where he is. The politics of resentment are the last, most powerful weapon the McCain campaign has left this cycle. The details of the charges don't matter, actual proof of fraud doesn't matter, any evidence whatsoever of voter fraud being a real problem with a measurable effect on elections certainly doesn't matter, because the "fraud" is just that, you know, no-good hoodlum welfare recipients are being handed voter registration forms, and one type of person sees that as the point of democracy and the other type sees it as an utter perversion of democracy. Didn't McCain used to totally be in the tank for ACORN? Well Republicans have been bitching about ACORN and voter fraud for years now, but McCain definitely didn't used to be one of those Republicans. In 2006 McCain did give a keynote address, about immigration rights, at a rally co-sponsored by ACORN. Can you maybe use a little more false equivalence to explain this in a way I understand? Sure. ACORN's voter registration drives are to conservatives what Diebold voting machines are the liberals. The possibility of abuse is present and clear, but no one's yet convincingly proved that any abuse has occurred. OK so what's up with everyone suddenly talking about ACORN? As we said, nuttier conservatives have been on the ACORN-bashing bandwagon for years now. That it's finally trickled up to Drudge and Fox means they're scared they're losing the election and they need to preemptively delegitimize Obama. What are my talking points for when crazy relatives argue that ACORN stole the election? What we're dealing with so far is minor voter registration fraud. The questionable registrations number in the double digits in most states, and most of them have been flagged and caught by either ACORN themselves or election officials. Furthermore in many places the false registrations are required by law to be submitted anyway, so that ACORN isn't guilty of, say, tossing out the forms of Republicans they sign up. They do try to flag the fake ones as fake, but regardless, the fake ones are still being caught. Also: voter registration fraud does not coherently lead to voter fraud, because if you register one man 75 times, how will he vote 75 times, exactly? More importantly, the election can't be stolen if it hasn't happened yet, and voter registration fraud does not explain in any way a double digit lead for a candidate in national tracking polls. Like, wtf, how are you making this argument, are you slow? ACORN registering Mickey Mouse is why Barack Obama is up 12 in Pennsylvania? Ok, sure, whatever you say.

BREAKING: Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden is overly concerned with his appearance! The Delaware Senator's long been famous for his terrible embarrassing hair plugs, but a story out of the Washington Post today has it that Biden might have injected terrorist biological weapons into his forehead as part of some sick stunt to not look old and tired. Botox Biden! This is important hilarious breaking news, if you just arrived via time machine from one of the last two election cycles. In 2000 no one cared about anything because there were still jobs and stuff and no war and 9/11 was just a glimmer in Osama bin Laden's eye, so the Gore versus Bush campaign was mostly about how Gore was tricked into wearing Earth Tones by some emasculating feminists. Bush proudly kept dressing like a gay cowboy hustler, damn the focus groups, so he won (except he didn't but whatever). And in 2004 even though we had a war and shitty job creation it was still for some reason all about how Bush held a bullhorn on some rubble and John Kerry went windsurfing in a gay wetsuit and he looked French and also like Lurch. So! Bush won (for real for once). And honestly you can bitch about the sad end of this magical friendly bipartisan campaign we were supposed to have with these two DIFFERENT candidates who'd be so polite to one another but so far despite an amazing number of distractions the fact that people seem determined to care about "real issues" is semi-heartening. But of course "real issues" don't make for good column fodder, so a week after the New York Post floated the Biden botox story the Washington Post's gossip columnists (both of whom, it should be noted, are absolutely wonderful people) followed up with an "lol politicians are vain" piece and Drudge linked to it because the number of credible non-killer-storm items he can allow himself to link to every day is shrinking. The End.

Here comes the McCain campaign reboot! It soft-launched on Friday, with the candidate angrily rebuking the wackos who go to his rallies these days. Attached: Matt Drudge's front page. Drudge has been broadcasting live from a bizarro world these last few weeks. In this world, people still like Sarah Palin and McCain is ever-so-close in the national tracking polls. (Also everyone finds it funny that Obama said "pie" a bunch of times in a recent appearance. That is one of those links, to a YouTube of Barack Obama saying "pie" a bunch of times.) Now, simply because it is decreed, it must happen: it's comeback time! What does that entail? Let's take a sneak peek at this week's new McCain narrative. First, the Bill Kristol column! Kristol is always a great barometer for the mood of McCain's political team. And, according to Bill, McCain is going to fire that political team, maverick style!

Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman is a scummy asshole and also, usually, a surprisingly good politician. (You'd kinda have to be to be a New Yorker with a sham marriage to a wannabe Hollywood actress and still win in Minnesota.) He's the "which way is the wind blowing" style of campaigner, and now he's suspending his campaign to... no, sorry, he's "suspending all negative campaign ads" as of today. It's a great little stunt, actually. Coleman's running against Al Franken. Franken basically didn't have a chance in hell of winning, until a) Obama began surging and b) the economy went into a tailspin. Suddenly, Obama is occasionally polling in the double digits in Minnesota (a double-digit Obama victory may be the only way for Franken to get into office), and, even worse, Franken is sometimes outpolling Coleman (Franken is up 9 points in the most recent Star Tribune poll, which is an outlier, but Coleman's lead seems to be shrinking everywhere else). The campaign's been vicious and negative by any standard, but especially for Minnesota, where campaigns have always seemed a little more polite. All this was before a video of Coleman's spokesman disastrously not defending Coleman's gifts from wealthy businessmen swept across the internet. Finally, MSNBC points this statistic out:

Shock! Christopher Buckley, an East Coast Intellectual Elitist, is supporting Barack Obama for president! It's funny because the intellectual end of the conservative movement has now completely dried up and blown away. And we're defining "intellectual end" broadly enough to include David Brooks btw. Here is the relevant passage from the Buckley column, printed in Tina Brown's weird Daily Brownington Post internet buzz thing:

So the New York Times has a great story on Barack Obama's shady illegal fundraising. Because the system is utterly broken and Obama is taking advantage of that fact to win this election. His unprecedented fundraising is democracy at its worst! Of course millions in donations from thousands of random people is not so bad, and McCain's taking advantage of the GOP bundling system that Bush developed which is really just a laundering service. Still, hey, lots of people are donating way more than is legal to Obama's campaign and that campaign is maybe not being as vigilant about checking up on this as they should be. Though honestly this story is primarily an excuse to print the funny fake names and occupations of these mysterious illegal donors:

Barack Obama purchased a full half-hour of airtime on CBS and NBC. His very special infomercial is set to air Wednesday, October 29. John McCain probably can't afford to do this! It's also not unprecedented: Ross Perot did it, and it was hilarious and awesome. Also they used to do it all the time in the 1960s. But jeez, a half-hour is a long time! We hope he has a musical guest or something? Here is the best part of this news: "The buy will push CBS comedy 'The New Adventures of Old Christine' to 8:30 p.m. and pre-empt 'Gary Unmarried.' NBC typically airs the hourlong 'Knight Rider' in the slot, and will likely throw in a comedy repeat at 8:30 p.m." Thank you Senator Obama for preempting Gary Unmarried! Change you can believe in! In response, Senator McCain is going to co-host an infomercial for the Flavor Wave Over Turbo, which will air at 5 a.m. the following morning on Lifetime.

This isn't the first time that a complete unknown has come so close to the presidency-at least not if one includes Hollywood fantasies. The best of them is Being There, a movie made during the last period of national distress in which a mild-mannered and subnormal gardener played by Peter Sellers stumbles into the political spotlight. His bromides on the seasons are taken as reassuring economic wisdom; his television interviews test off the charts; and in the final scene the party establishment clutches at him as their savior much as the McCain campaign selected Sarah Palin. After the jump, a clip crosscut with moments from this year's campaign; but first, some dialogue.

Any amateur document experts want to weigh in on this document which is floating around the web? It purports to represent the high-school grades of one Sarah Heath of Wasilla, Alaska, now the Republican running mate. If the report card is a forgery, it's decent work.

So. The economy's tanking, banks are failing, we're heading into a recession, an unpopular president is finishing his 2nd disastrous term with historic disapproval ratings, and we're fighting overseas. There must be a historical precedent, right? Right? Plenty of professional pundit people seem to think so! But which year is it? 1932? 1992? 1968?? Let's examine the facts: 1932 Sez Who? Writing in The Nation (natch), "Superintendent" Charmers Johnson sez this year just might be a "'realigning election,' of which there have been only two during the past century—the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and of Richard Nixon in 1968." Why now? "First, the weakness (and age) of the Republican candidate may perhaps indicate that the Party itself is truly at the end of a forty-year cycle of power. Second, of course, is the meltdown, even possibly implosion, of the US economy on the Republican watch (specifically, on that of George W. Bush, the least popular president in memory, as measured by recent opinion polls)..... Third, there has been a noticeable trend in shifting party affiliations in which the Democrats are gaining membership as the Republicans are losing it, especially in key battleground states like Pennsylvania...." (And fifth: the youngs!) Is Is True? Not really! Because back then, the Dems rode the depression through countless elections and Roosevelt remained popular! If things suck more in 2012 than they do now, Obama will be blamed. 1992 Sez Who? Robert Reich, former secretary of labor, writing in the New York Times, says "January 2009 is starting to look a lot like January 1993." Why Now? "Then, the federal deficit was running at roughly $300 billion a year, or about 5 percent of gross domestic product, way too high for comfort. By contrast, the deficit for the 2009 fiscal year is now projected to be $410 billion, or about 3.3 percent of gross domestic product." Uh, ok. Is It True? Not really! Back then we'd had two terms of a mostly popular Republican followed by one disastrous term of an unpopular Republican who was considered out of touch. This is the "John McCain wins this year" option. 1976 Sez Who? Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, blogging for the Wall Street Journal, says, "one could see this year’s scenario as closer to 1976, when a previously unknown Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter, promising a breath of fresh air in the White House, seized on the public clamor for change and won the presidency." Why Now? "The public mood in 1976, less than two years after Republican Richard Nixon resigned the presidency due to Watergate, and with the economy hurting due to what was then skyrocketing gasoline prices, was almost as sour as today." And! "Mr. Carter, a former one-term governor of Georgia offered a candidacy that conceded a lack of Washington experience, much like Sen. Obama. And, as Sen. Obama so far this year, Mr. Carter prospered because the national mood valued change over all else." Is It True? You know, it might be! 1988 Sez Who? Peter Brown, again! Why Now? Two-term Republican ends on a not-too-popular note, Dems nominate a proud liberal, economy not looking hot. Is It True? Probably not, because Obama's looking way better than Dukakis. But! Worst Case Scenario It is 1988 redux. Only Obama is Bush senior. Remember, he's an elitist who's out of touch too! He inherits a miserable economy and can't right the ship fast enough. A brief war—or killing Bin Laden—might make him briefly, hugely popular. But a couple years from now, if things haven't improved, he gets the blame, as we said. He's basically positoined perfectly for a folsky populist Souterner to swoop in and steal the nation's heart. In other words, welcome President Huckabee! Best Case Scenario It's 1952 redux! We're mired in a pointless foreign war! Another incredibly unpopular two-term president is leaving! The country needs stability and economic renewal! In this example, Obama is Ike Eisenhower, America's favorite president! He serves two wonderful mostly peaceful terms, builds up the middle class, and everyone is happy except the beatniks. So. Should we have a poll? If so we'd like to add that maybe it's 1884, on account of how nasty everyone is.

• MC: Did you get a chill?
  CM: I did. I got a chill, and I also was very poignantly reminded of just how strong my husband is, how tough and determined. -Cindy McCain to Marie Claire on visiting her husbands former hospital in Vietnam.

John McCain, speaking today to a crowd of supporters: "Across this country, this is the agenda i have set before my fellow prisoners and the same standards of clarity and candor must now be applied to my opponent." It's, uh... it's a weird, weird slip. At least it's better than "my friends." Does this mean we all get kinky gay bondage now? [TPM, Cajun Boy]

Both candidates went into the debates with the goal of looking Already President. Because many Americans simply wanted to believe they could trust the new guy, Obama won the first debate on those terms. Last night, it became clear that Obama's strategy was to spend the first debate as a calm, respectful presence and to open up more distinctions between the two candidates in the second. It also became clear that McCain's strategy was to assume he just couldn't possibly be losing to that punk kid. Conservatives are miserable that McCain lost last night. He pissed away the election! It was his last shot at winning! He never delivered the knock-out blow! He'd lost it already. Seriously. What could he have done, last night, that would've been a game-changer? Anything? He tried a stunt—"the Treasury Department will buy all the mortgages!"—but it just sounded like a stunt (also that is a great way to remind Republicans that they never liked you to begin with, by proposing a plan to the left of Obama). He was a little bit nicer, a bit jokier, but also much more critical of Obama in ways that made more sense than last time. What else could he have done? Magically appear 20 years younger? The only way to win this year on policy is to run to the left of the Democrats and the only way to win on character is to be more youthful and serious and new and comfortably familiar than Obama. McCain lost before he showed up. Once he showed up he looked old and tired. It'd be cruel to hand that man the presidency in a time like this. Tina Brown: "During the campaign McCain has aged dramatically. Like Dorian Gray, the bargains he has made with his conscience are reflected in the mirror. He has developed a strange Jimmy Cagney rasp and new verbal eccentricities that seem to have fused the speaking styles of Bob Dole and Ross Perot." John Heilemann: "He rattled around onstage looking slightly lost, making hokey jokes that fell flat in the hall, offering edgy barbs at Obama (and even Tom Brokaw!), and telling hoary stories that referenced Ronald Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt, Tip O'Neill, and Herbert Hoover - historically significant figures who reinforced the image of the Arizona senator as yesterday's man." Rich Lowry: "I thought McCain was good. It's as passionate and well-informed as he's ever been on domestic policy. His debate briefers did their job well. I think he repeatedly scored points in the first hour, but they were jabs rather then crosses-blows that Obama could absorb." And it should be noted that at The Corner they are convinced the only way McCain could've won this was to bring up William Ayers over and over and over again, to paint Obama as a radical leftist and to somehow get Real Americans to Wake Up and realize that this guy isn't who he says he is. Fittingly, their dissatisfaction with their mediocre candidate totally mirrors McCain's obvious shock that people are taking this Obama guy seriously. And now that Obama's favorables are so high, now that everyone is pretty sure they do know this guy (the time to paint him as something foreign and secretly scary came months ago, and Obama passed that test just fine), trying to scare voters away from him just demonstrates your contempt for their judgment. You know, the sort of contempt liberals were all accused of feeling because we couldn't believe anyone would've voted for Bush. Everyone hates the voters! We're pretty sure there isn't a "game-changer" of any kind available to the McCain campaign, and the best they can hope for is some sort of catastrophic meltdown by Obama. We're also pretty sure our debate preview was totally right!

Honestly? We'd rather read a book-length history of the Hillary Clinton campaign written by Josh Green than read another word about McCain and Obama. But let's take a look at the people currently working on their own novelistic takes on the waking nightmare that has been 2008 thus far! The Observer reports on the contenders: Michael Takiff, on oral historian. He's writing a Bill Clinton biography (though maybe it's been shelved). He's a Nation-contributing lefty, who once also tried to write a book about George McGovern. You might be able to guess how his book would read. Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson. Balz, the consummate Washington Post political correspondent, has been following both campaigns around and probably has the sources to get some good material for a quickie book. It's up to Haynes Johnson, the former civil rights reporter who now writes big grand sweeping statement books about how it's "the age of" something or other, to give it a cohesive narrative. That narrative will probably be pretty middle-of-the-road. And Johnson is probably too old to get THE INTERNET. But maybe it'll be good? Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Halperin writes The Page for Time. Before that, he wrote The Note for ABC. He became the King of the Washington Press Corps in the '90s when he underminded Clinton and the liberals all the time and sucked Drudge's cock incessantly. He's so far outside reality now that his last book was on how the next president would have to heed the words of Karl Rove and worship at the altar of Drudge. His blog is unreadable and he was dead wrong on the Biden pick, even though he erased the entry and tried to pretend he had it too. Heilmann, though, is the very very good New York Magazine political writer. John, find a different co-author and we're right there with you!

It will be boring. John McCain will be friendly and upbeat to questioners but still cold to Obama. Obama will be well-prepared and not at all nasty, again. McCain's shot at the presidency will continue to gradually escape him, leaving him increasingly tortured and miserable. Update: Come back here at 9 for the liveblog!

So. The McCain campaign oddly decided to run against the media this year. It's not that odd, because Republicans have been doing it quite successfully since 1968, but this is the first year they've had a candidate who started off beloved by the media. And they just sorta pissed that away. Then in running against the media, they pissed off the media, and suddenly John McCain can't get any favorable coverage anywhere, and then they push back againt the media even more, and then Times executive editor Bill Keller says: “My first tendency when they do that is to find the toughest McCain story we’ve got and put it on the front page, just to show them that they can’t get away with it.” Sorta giving the game away! So that explains the gambling story. But those terrible old standards of make-believe "fairness" are what then led the Times to enable the insane and vicious tone the campaign suddenly took this week. The Times put that gambling story on the front page even though there didn't seem to be that much to it. Now Keller admits, basically, that they did it because the McCain campaign was bothering them. So, obviously, then they had to be fair and put some sort of theoretically damaging Obama story on the front page a week later! And they did, with Obama and ’60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths, the story of how goofy '60s Weatherman Bill Ayers cleaned up and went legit and eventually served on a non-profit board with Barack Obama, which means Obama is a terrorist. Like, seriously, this is what they concluded: