Sarah Palin does not own family issues. McCain does not represent change.

Look, I understand what it's like to be a single parent. When my wife and daughter died and my two sons were gravely injured, I understand what it's like as a parent to wonder what it's like if your kid's going to make it.

I understand what it's like to sit around the kitchen table with a father who says, "I've got to leave, champ, because there's no jobs here. I got to head down to Wilmington. And when we get enough money, honey, we'll bring you down."

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Biden: Can I respond to that? Look, let's talk about the maverick John McCain is. And again I love him, he's been a maverick on some issues but he's been no maverick on things that a matter people's lives. He voted four out of five times for George Bush's budget which put us half a trillion in debt this year and over three trillion in debt since he got there. He has not been a maverick in providing healthcare for people.

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No huge gaffes, but a game changer? Not to me. What did you think?

The Vice Presidential debate between Senator Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin begins at 9pm ET on CNN. Big Tent Democrat, TChris, the TL Kid and I will be live-blogging.

The live blog stays below the fold so that it can be a bit wider than the front page allows. Just click on the "There's More" button or bookmark the permalink to go directly to it.

You can comment same as always in the comment section below. You also can send us live messages through the software. Only comments you post below will be visible to readers here. [More...]

In an episode of The Simpsons that will air on November 2, Homer attempts to vote for Obama.

In 90 minutes, Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin will debate. Politico reports Palin's game plan is to attack Biden and throw his words from former statements, particularly about foreign policy, back at him. Biden, it reports, will be a "just the facts" style debater, concentrating on defending Obama and attacking McCain.

Expectations for Palin, once in the tank, now are mounting.

“This is going to finally put her back into a position where we see her like we saw her the first couple weeks,” a McCain official said. “She was herself. She was authentic, and people related to that. ... Tonight, she’ll get into a rhythm. You’re going to see her in a way that you haven’t seen her yet.”

I don't know that anyone much cares. They're tuning in to see if there's a train wreck.

I don't expect any major gaffes from Palin. She's been coached to the gills by now. Nor do I expect she'll win McCain any voters. [More...]

From the new issue of Rolling Stone: Make-Believe Maverick -- a ten page article on John McCain that finds:

A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty.

Also check out two companion features in the same issue:

• The Double-Talk Express:

  From tax cuts to torture, John McCain has flip-flopped on a host of issues - including his own immigration bill

• The Truth about Sarah Palin:

  Sarah Palin's credentials as a "reformer" are nothing but spin. She has sided with Big Oil, lobbied to increase pork spending and abused her public power to carry out personal vendettas. Here's a guide to separating myth from fact.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed the terrorism convictions of Yemeni clerics Sheik Mohammed Ali Al-Moayad and Mohammed Mohsen Zayed.

The 68 page opinion is here (pdf).The Court said the defendants were prejudiced by the introduction of inflammatory evidence at trial.

The men were convicted in federal court in Brooklyn after a six-week trial in early 2005 on charges of conspiring to support al-Qaida and Hamas, supporting the Palestinian group and attempting to support al-Qaida. Their trial featured testimony by an FBI informant who set himself on fire outside the White House, saying he wanted more money from the FBI.

Al-Moayad, 60, was sentenced to 75 years in prison. Zayed, 34, was sentenced to 45 years.

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Give Michigan's 17 electoral votes to Barack Obama. At least that's the way John McCain sees it.

John McCain is pulling out of Michigan, according to two Republicans, a stunning move a month away from Election Day that indicates the difficulty Republicans are having in finding blue states to put in play. McCain will go off TV in Michigan, stop dropping mail there and send most of his staff to more competitive states, including Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida.

McCain might as well write off Wisconsin while he's at it. Even rural Wisconsin communities that were littered with Bush signs four years ago now feature hard-to-get Obama signs. Florida and Ohio are better places for McCain to spend his dwindling time and dollars.

Barack Obama delivered a good speech yesterday in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. It was marred by his failure to address, or promise to address, the plight of homeowners and Main Street in this country. Unlike Hillary Clinton, Obama has not embraced a modern day HOLC. It is perplexing to me why he refuses to do so.

Today, the NYTimes Ed Board wrote:

Falling house prices are driving the collapse of the financial system. But the bailout bill, even the “sweetened” version that was approved by the Senate Wednesday night, does little to avert the defaults and foreclosures that are pushing house values ever downward. At last count, six million people were expected to default on their mortgages this year and next, putting them at risk of losing their homes unless they can catch up in their payments or catch a break on their loan terms. And they’re not the only ones at risk. As prices drop, millions of people who have never missed a mortgage payment stand to lose their home equity.

And yet, Obama has had little to say on this subject. It is perplexing to me. More . . .

For the second time, the federal prosecutors in Senator Ted Stevens' corruption trial have been chastised for withholding exculpatory evidence from the defense. The first instance is discussed in this post.

This time prosecutors failed to disclose that prosecution witness Bill Allen told the government that "he believed Stevens would have paid for the renovations if Allen had ever billed him." Allen's belief isn't all that important, given Allen's testimony that the person Stevens tasked with talking to Allen about payment told Allen to ignore Stevens' requests to be billed. Still, it's the kind of evidence the government must reveal, and the government's continuing inability to play by the rules has seriously aggravated the judge:

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said the powerful 40-year senator "would not be getting a fair trial if it were up to the government."

That's pretty much always true, but it's nice of a judge to notice. [more ...]

Poor John McCain:

Asked why Obama has been rising as the Wall Street crisis has dominated attention, McCain said on Fox News Channel: "Because life isn’t fair."

What a great new campaign slogan! It's one with which most of us would agree after enduring eight years of a Republican presidency.

Despite suspending his campaign (but not really) and returning to Washington to muck up negotiations on the bailout bill and failing to deliver a majority of Republican House votes for the plan he endorsed, McCain lost ground to Obama in the polls. How terribly unfair it is that voters are noticing how lost and ineffectual McCain is, how empty his rhetoric has been since backing away from his proclamation that the fundamentals of the economy are "strong," how hypocritical he is in calling for regulation of the finance industry after championing deregulation throughout his career.

McCain has joined the ranks of the whiners. Suck it up, Senator. You only have another month until you can take a nice long nap and try to forget that the election ever happened.