debate? no debate?

Wow, what a crazy election cycle!

Yesterday McCain said he would suspend his campaign until a bailout package is passed. He also wants to postpone the first debate which is scheduled for tomorrow. Obama says the debate should go on and it’s more important than ever for people to decide who will be leading the country in 40 or so days.

Just like the Palin announcement, this scared me for a bit just because it was pretty unexpected. But this isn’t like suspending campaign events for a hurricane or something – this is a man-made disaster that a President would have to handle, even if there were other things going on at the same time. Looks like people aren’t thrilled with the idea either. (David Letterman is not impressed) fivethirtyeight.com’s Nate Silver thinks it won’t work (I remember the Iran-Contra scandals preempting Square One as a kid! I was so mad…)

I don’t know what this means for tomorrow’s debate – it looks like Democrats have agreed in theory to the $700 billion bailout (with some oversight and executive pay limits) but I doubt they’d be able to pass anything by tomorrow. Maybe Obama will get 90 minutes all to himself? That would be awesome!

McCain then proposed that the first Presidential debate be held in the slot for the VP debate which sure seems like there would be no VP debate then. Wonder if he’s worried about Palin’s performance…

Kind of a mini-scandal: McCain’s campaign manager still a lobbyist despite earlier statements to the contrary.

Yeah, I want this mug. Genius!

Anyway, sorry for the heavy politics lately – it accurately reflects what’s on my mind and what I’ve been reading about. It’ll all be over in 40ish days barring something crazy like 2000. I sure hope that doesn’t happen… (there’s a not unlikely scenario of a 269-269 tie that would throw the election to the House of Representatives…then things get really complicated but Obama would probably win)