Tonight's debate is must-see teevee

"It used to be you'd ask your buddy, 'Where are you watching the game?' " said Armando Walle, Democratic state representative candidate in District 140. "Now it's, 'Where are you going to watch the debate?' " ...

(Last) Friday, an estimated 52.4 million Americans tuned in to watch the McCain-Obama debate — and Thursday night's crowd could be larger.

Traditionally, Thursday is a good night to watch TV; Friday is not. Besides, last week, nobody but McCain knew if he was even going to show up. Also, there's the allure of seeing a potential train wreck.

Ah yes. Train wreck or smackdown. Possibly both, and potentially for either player.

It may be the ugly side of human nature, but regular Americans, political pundits and academics who make their living dissecting just such media events can hardly wait.

"There was some underestimation of how much this election will become the mini-series of the season," said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University. "It's been the most exciting TV on, from the beginning of year till now."

He figures Palin will try to get through the debate by memorizing eight or nine mini-speeches. If she can do that successfully, he said, the 90 minutes will be as boring as some people deemed last Friday's debate. "The only chance for anything interesting is if the moderator, Gwen Ifill, can ask her questions that can't be answered with a push of the button and recitation," Thompson said.

Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said he's heard Palin's debate preparations haven't gone so well.

"It's asking a tremendous amount from a former mayor of Wasilla and a governor of less than two years to get up to speed on foreign and domestic policies," Jillson said. "Even if she is really talented."

Thompson will be glued to his TV set, but with low expectations.

"Is Palin even competent to run for this office?" he asked. "She is making (former vice president) Dan Quayle sound like a Rhodes scholar."

The only thing that reverses the slide and gets the GOP back in the game is a gaffe-free Palin and a gaffe-filled Biden. What are the odds of that occurence?

And what do our locals have to say?

City Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck will be rooting for Palin.

"I think she's terrific, and I'm real excited about her," Clutterbuck said. "She's been involved and successful in local government, and I recognize the dedication and hard work that goes into that. ... You don't have to be in Washington all your career to be a competent leader."

Peggy Hamric, a former GOP state representative, will be rooting for Palin, too.

"She's just a breath of fresh air," Hamric said. "Palin's a typical American woman. She's Main Street."

Political scientists doubt Democratic women, even disappointed Hillary Clinton supporters, will cross party lines to vote for Palin.

While Clutterbuck and Hamric hope they're wrong, Sissy Farenthold, a lifelong feminist, says she won't be voting her gender. She thinks not only that Palin has poor judgment, but that McCain exhibited poor judgment in selecting her as his VP. "He wanted to invigorate the conservative base, and he thought he might appeal to women," Farenthold said. "All I can believe is that he's not thinking about governance, he's not thinking about the issues. The whole thing is just amazing to me."

We're going out to watch it with a large group of people somewhere. I like to gauge the reaction of others, even those with whom I am simpatico. Last week I was increasingly incensed as Obama played nice to McLame's nasty, complimenting him, saying "Senator McCain is exactly right about ..." about four times too many, and generally not doing what I thought he should do, which was bust the old man in the mouth. He threw a few elbows and a couple of left jabs, yeah, but not nearly enough counter-punching to suit me. Turns out I was mistaken about how that would be perceived by the majority, however.

Biden cannot do anything aggressive at all toward his overmatched counterpart. He must be direct, deferential, keep the focus on the Republican standard-bearer's shortcomings, and when Ms. Palin trips and falls, stand quietly. Hell, maybe he should even help her up.

I just hope there aren't too many cringe-worthy moments. For either person.

Bailout Burger, extra bacon, cut the taxes

The new bill, which is over 400 pages, is full of random tax cuts (e.g., property tax deductions for people who don't itemize), which is sure to please some conservative House Republicans and infuriate Democrats who think cutting taxes without cutting spending is irresponsible. It is also full of pork designed to please both Democrats (requiring insurance companies to cover mental health) and Republicans ($3 billion for rural schools). It is likely that the number of Republicans gained in the House vote will exceed the number of Democrats lost by more than 13 and the bill will probably pass the House tomorrow. Everybody was too busy adding pork to question the basic premise of whether giving former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson $250 billion immediately to help out his friends on Wall St. as he sees fit is a good idea.

So with public sentiment running so strongly against it, will tenuous Republican Senators on the ballot next month -- like John Cornhole, Saxby Chambliss, Norm Coleman, Ted Stevens and John Sununu -- pay a price for their support of the bill?

Update: Indeed he is losing the wingnuts. More at the LST here and here (read the comments).

What 2 Watch 4 in Da House: how many Blue Dogs jump off the bus. Pay particularly close attention to those in tight races, like Nick Lampson for example. And if endangered GOP Congresscritters like John Cumbersome vote for the bill, I say that would be the final nail in his coffin. (He won't.)

Update II: The Blue Dogs get the shaft. Ha ha.

Congress chats, markets take off

Not the credit markets, though.

On Monday, the Dow Jones index plunged 778 points but yesterday it soared 485 points even though nothing changed. One of the fundamental concepts of economic theory is that markets accurately reflect the actual value of the item being traded. But it is hard to believe that the true value of companies as solid as Boeing, Disney, Pfizer, and Wal-Mart can change by nearly 10% in a few hours.

The Senate is likely to vote on a revised bailout bill today. It will probably have sweeteners for various groups, such as an expanded FDIC limit to protect depositors and make them less likely to cause a run on a bank. Such a bill, however, may draw new opposition in the House. Didn't Abraham Lincoln say something like: "You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't please all of the people all of the time"? This bill is definitely not going to please all of the people. It is being microscopically crafted to please 51 senators (or 50 senators plus Dick Cheney) and 218 representatives. But other plans are being circulated. For example, billionaire George Soros is floating a plan in which the treasury would recapitalize the failing banks by having them issue new stock that the government would buy at the market price. This scheme means that the stockholders of failing banks would have their stock watered down but the stockholders in banks that don't need assistance would be unaffected. Various alternative plans are also being suggested and opposition to it is still strong among conservatives.

A pretty fair assessment by The Votemaster there. While Congress dithers, the economy burns. Here's an observation from one sector, automobile sales: people with good credit scores are being offered car loans at 9 and 10 percent, while nearly no one else is getting financed at all:

“It frankly has become a nightmare for dealers and consumers who need a vehicle,” said Art Spinella, CNW’s president. “This is the worst we have seen it since we’ve been tracking it since 1984.” ...

But Mark LaNeve, head of North American sales for General Motors, estimates that G.M. is losing 10,000 to 12,000 sales a month because of tighter lending practices.

“It’s a bigger problem than $4-a-gallon gas,” said James Press, a Chrysler vice chairman. “We have buyers coming in, but they can’t get a loan.”

Detroit is bracing for particularly bad sales numbers for September. According to estimates from Edmunds.com, Chrysler sales may be down as much as 36 percent, G.M.’s may drop 23 percent, and Ford Motor Company sales could be down 25 percent.

Even Japanese automakers, which specialize in fuel-efficient smaller cars, are expected to record a rough month, with Toyota projected to be down by 17 percent and Nissan by 11 percent.

Last week the largest association of Chevrolet dealers in the country, Bill Heard Enterprises, shuttered its dealerships including its 7th-largest-in-the-nation Landmark Chevrolet in Houston.

And we all look forward to what October -- one of the historically worst months for the markets, and business overall -- will bring.

Reality intrudes

So much to blog, so little time to do so.

I met Mother and Brother in College Station on Sunday for lunch, Nephew's Aggie band concert, and the return drive to Orange County (Mother evacuated from Ike to Fort Worth and hasn't been back home since). Yesterday I got busy cleaning up her yard -- a few limbs and a couple of significant-size treetops down, nothing too large or serious -- and the neighbors pitched in with me, wheelbarrows and chainsaws and tractors large and small. I took a break at 11, cleaned up, went to lunch and the grocer's, and then finally got back in touch with the world about 2 p.m. yesterday afternoon to find it falling apart.

As I worked the phones the rest of the day and into the evening, calling to reassure clients and get reassurance myself from my vendors, mostly insurance companies, I found myself craving a return to the morning's manual labor.

(I should also note here that while we were in Aggieland and with a couple of hours to spare we went through the GHWB library. Vigorously exercising both gag reflex and self-restraint on Sunday turned out to be good preparation for Monday.)

I was thinking the bailout would pass, but I underestimated both the outcry from "Main Street" and the attention paid to said outcry by nervous Congresscritters in both parties. We're in for a few more bumpy days ahead as we ride this financial roller coaster through the High Holy Days.

As for Casa Diddie, well, my agency business looks cooked and the wife was quickly laid off, so I suppose we'll pop a little corn and watch the Blame Game, or maybe Dancing with The Stooges. Meanwhile there's some really good posts on what's going on from Tom Kirkendall here, the Socratic Gadfly here, and this analysis in the Chronic from the McClatchy team is spot on.

The Black Monday afternoon teevee coverage was remarkable in reporting the farce, from John Boehner attributing the bill's failure to the pussification of House Republicans, to David Gregory interviewing John Culberson and Sheila Jackson-Lee side side by side (both voted 'no'), to Keith Olbermann's and Rachel Maddow's careful and calm-inducing explanations. Suze Orman told viewers to stop going out to dinner every night, paying with a credit card and then paying the monthly minimum on that card. I don't think that's what Ma and Pa Mainstreet want to hear or heed.

And if anyone you know happens to be hiring financial experts, I know two people in the job market. Contact me care of this blog.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance had another great week discussing the politics of Texas and the nation. Here are some of the best of those posts:

The Texas Cloverleaf has the new Palin plan for foreign experience: sitting pretty with puppets.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme says welcome to the United States of Corporate Greed.

Dembones at Eye On Williamson posts on the Texas Association of Realtors (TAR) and their status quo endorsements for the November election, TAR needs to be tarred and feathered.

The past week has been one filled with brilliant people trying desperately to accomplish what is extremely difficult (namely, keeping the US out of a depression) and some exceptionally (some might say BREATHTAKINGLY) stupid people who are narrowly focused on the last shreds of a failed ideology. And their own egos. We at McBlogger have done our best to keep up with all the ups. And downs. First up are the always cretinous folks from the American Enterprise Institute who decided to blame the wrong people for the failures of their own plans. Then there was Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-unfortunately from Texas) who decided his supercharged ego and underpowered little rat-brain had something useful to add. He found out pretty quickly that wasn't the case.

Off the Kuff projects what the Houston Chronicle endorsements for November will look like.

A majority of voters thought Obama won the first debate, but all the media pundits could talk about was what a great job McCain did. jobsanger wonders what debate the "Talking Heads" were watching.

NorthTexas Liberal led an interesting discussion on John McCain's brief campaign suspension.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has refused to answer whether or not the Texas Association of Appraisal Districts should be subject to the Texas Public Information Act and discusses why that was a really stupid move.

Neil at Texas Liberal did not allow the dent in his car to be fixed by the guy who solicited him for the work in a parking lot. That's just the type of post-hurricane scam people are being warned about.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News does not like Bush and McCain's response to the Wall Street crisis. He has some items he wants included in a bailout bill and not bags of money thrown at the problem.

EV 9/27: Momentum shifts back to Obama

Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are back to blue. Missouri, Virginia and North Carolina are no longer red. All of this polling was completed prior to Friday night's debate.

<p><strong>><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'>Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>

Sunday Funnies

Paul Newman 1925 - 2008

With his strong, classically handsome face and piercing blue eyes, Newman was a heartthrob just as likely to play against his looks, becoming a favorite with critics for his convincing portrayals of rebels, tough guys and losers. "I was always a character actor," he once said. "I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood."

They had a famously durable marriage. Newman spoke about their relationship by noting how they decided to act in the comedy "A New Kind of Love" (1963).

He told Time magazine: "Joanne read it and said, 'Hey this could be fun to do together. Read it.' And I read it and said, 'Joanne, it's just a bunch of one-liners.'

"And she said, 'You [expletive], I've been carting your children around, taking care of them, taking care of you and your house.' And I said, 'That is what I said. It's a terrific script. I can't think of anything else I'd rather do.' This is what is known as a reciprocal trade agreement."

Newman had a soft spot for underdogs in real life, giving tens of millions to charities through his food company and setting up camps for severely ill children. Passionately opposed to the Vietnam War, and in favor of civil rights, he was so famously liberal that he ended up on President Nixon's "enemies list," one of the actor's proudest achievements, he liked to say.

Belligerent and condescending

Which didn't win over many independent voters. Nor many others.

The party was a blast -- SRO inside the Cotton Exchange, and our little group included Councilman Peter Brown, Rep. Al Edwards, Jim Sharp, and Alexandra Smoots-Hogan, among many others. Had that fabulous piece of fish at Cabo in the late night afterwards (the plantain crusted mahi-mahi).

Why didn't McNasty make eye contact with Obama one single time during the entire evening? And did you hear him mutter "horseshit"? Twice?!

Rockin' the debate tonight

Leaving shortly for the party, which means you'll have to look elsewhere for a live-blog. We're going to be drinking every time McLame says "bailout", "crisis", and since it's supposed to be a debate about foreign policy, "9/11", "mushroom cloud", and "Ackmabinehandjob" or something that sounds similar.

Which means we'll all be unconscious before 9:30.

WaMu gets Chased into history

WooHoo:

JPMorgan Chase became the biggest U.S. bank by deposits, acquiring Washington Mutual's branch network for $1.9 billion after the thrift was seized in the largest U.S. bank failure in history.

Customers of WaMu withdrew $16.7 billion from accounts since Sept. 16, leaving the Seattle-based bank "unsound," the Office of Thrift Supervision said late Thursday. WaMu's branches will open today and depositors will have full access to all their accounts, Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said on a conference call.

Well, there go WaMu's socially liberal policies. I had what some may consider a lot of money (and some would think a mere pittance) in WaMu, but never worried about it, even when I learned that the FDIC itself was undercapitalized. I knew the feds would never let them go belly-up, and I knew that before they began rescuing mortgage companies and insurance companies.

WaMu turned down offers of $8 a share earlier this year and $4 a share just a few weeks ago. Today...

... WaMu, down 95 percent in the past year, dropped to 45 cents in extended trading following the announcement, which came after the close of regular trading.

David Bonderman's TPG Inc., which led a $7 billion capital infusion for WaMu earlier this year, lost most of its initial $2 billion investment. TPG, based in Forth Worth, Texas, said in a statement Thursday it was "dissatisfied with the loss" and that the WaMu investment was a "small part of assets."

New York-based JPMorgan, which separately announced plans to raise $8 billion by selling common stock, had its outlook lowered to negative by Moody's Investors Service. Moody's left its Aa2 rating on JPMorgan unchanged.

JPMorgan won't acquire WaMu's liabilities, including claims by shareholders and subordinated and senior debt holders, the FDIC said. JPMorgan paid $10 a share for Bear Stearns in March as the New York-based securities firm teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.

"This is one of the reasons I own JPMorgan: They're going to win from all this," said Anton Schutz, president of Mendon Capital Advisors Corp. in Rochester, New York. "They're taking on credit risk, but they're not taking on any debt obligations."

JPMChase has bought Bear Stearns and WaMu in the past two months; Bank of America owns Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. The last remaining independent brokerage houses in the US, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs (Henry Paulson's former employer), have been OK'd to become banks themselves. But the Chinese are turning off the spigot, so who knows where it goes from here, especially if John McInsane and the House Republicans succeed in derailing Bush's bailout.

And in other news, the stock market is rocketing downward again this morning. Update (at market closing): A nice finish to a wild day.

Putin rears his head and comes into the air space

I'll bet he can see Sarah's house from there ...


Every single time that poor ditz opens her mouth it's a field day.