DKos/R2000 (9/23-25) has Obama up 5, 48-43. Hotline (9/23-25) has Obama up 7, 49-42. NYTimes (9/21-24) has Obama up 6, 50-44. Gallup (9/23-25) has Obama by 3, 48-45. Ras (9/23-25) has Obama up 5, 50-45. Still standing alone, Battleground (9/21-25) has McCain up 2, 48-46.

If there is a debate, it is very likely to have an effect on all of the polls. Will McCain show up? I have not a shadow of a doubt he will be there.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

NYTimes analysis:

Senator John McCain had intended to ride back into Washington on Thursday as a leader who had put aside presidential politics to help broker a solution to the financial crisis. Instead he found himself in the midst of a remarkable partisan showdown, lacking a clear public message for how to bring it to an end. At the bipartisan White House meeting that Mr. McCain had called for a day earlier, he sat silently for more than 40 minutes, more observer than leader, and then offered only a vague sense of where he stood, said people in the meeting.

. . . [T]here was no evidence that he was playing a major role in the frantic efforts on Capitol Hill to put a deal back together again. . . . [T]he day’s events succeeded most of all in raising questions about precisely why Mr. McCain had called for postponing the first debate and returned to Washington to focus on the bailout plan, and what his own views were about what should be done. . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) Eugene Robinson explains: [More...]

NYTimes reports:

In the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr. . . . pleaded with Nancy Pelosi . . . not to “blow it up” by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal. [Pelosi responded] “[i]t’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans.” Mr. Paulson sighed. “I know. I know.”

It was the very outcome the White House had said it intended to avoid, with partisan presidential politics appearing to trample what had been exceedingly delicate Congressional negotiations. . . . [A] top aide to Mr. Boehner . . . , Kevin Smith, said Republicans revolted, in part, because they were chafing at what they saw as an attempt by Democrats to jam through an agreement on the bailout early Thursday and deny Mr. McCain an opportunity to participate in the agreement.

(Emphasis supplied.) So Republicans ADMIT that they blew up the deal because it "den[ied] McCain an opportunity to participate in the agreement." The admissions is shocking and revealing. John McCain and the Republicans blew up this deal to further McCain's own political ambition. Country first my ass.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

More and more media articles I'm reading tonight agree: McCain's suspension of his campaign was a political stunt, a second Hail Mary pass to deal with falling poll numbers and growing worry among voters that Sarah Palin just is not qualified or prepared to be Vice President and that he makes rash decisions out of self-interest and tries to pass them off as patriotism.

Here's one I like a lot, it covers almost all the bases: Sell! Sell! McCain is Tanking in the Boston Globe.

Between his grandstanding on the economy today -- claiming he was going to suspend his campaign because his presence was needed in D.C. to ensure a bailout deal was made, when he has little economic expertise and has never served on a banking committee, and then failing to arrive until mid-afternoon, well after Dems and Republicans had crafted their tentative agreement but finding time to appear on all three networks and still refusing to abide by his debate commitment tomorrow night -- and the woefully inept performance of Gov. Sarah Palin on the Katie Couric interview -- he's got to be toast.

More...

I'm deciding between watching the last hour of Play It As It Lays, the movie with Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins made from the Joan Didion novel which was my favorite book for all of the '70's and '80's (I can still recite most of the dialogue by heart) and the first hour of the new Survivor, while I wait for the two hour season premiere of Gray's Anatomy to start.

Survivor is in Gabon in Africa, and in HD for the first time.

I've had enough of the economy and Sarah Palin for the day. What are you watching or doing?

Update: Gray's Anatomy was terrible, everybody died and the melodrama was over the top and boring.

NYTimes Poll (9/21-24) says Obama 50 - McCain 44.

Why? 52% say the economy is the top issue, up 4% from just last week. Just 16% approve of George Bush's handling of the economy (26% approve of Bush generally.) 46% says the economy is very bad. 34% says it is just bad. 2% think the economy is getting better. 70% think it is getting worse.

And here is my HOLC moment of this post: "Do you think the federal government should provide financial help to home owners who are having trouble repaying their mortgages because their rates went up or shouldn't the federal government do this? Should 58, Should not 34."

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Update: The New York Times reviews Palin's performance and the Kissinger portion described below. Verdict: Her worst so far, and she may not be able to regroup.

I just finished watching the live version of Katie Couric's CBS interview with Sarah Palin. In addition to the sections I wrote up here, there's more.

Katie brought up Palin's meeting with Henry Kissinger this week, mentioning he is for direct diplomacy with Iran and Syria. She asked Palin whether the U.S. should meet with leaders of Iran and Syria.

Palin said you can't meet with leaders like Ahmadinejad without preconditions. She mocked Obama and called his plan to meet with leaders of Iran without preconditions "so off base," "beyond naive" and "beyond bad judgment." She gave Katie a little lecture on what diplomacy means.

More...

Marc Ambinder reports:

During the White House meeting, it appears that Sen. John McCain had an agenda. He brought up alternative proposals, surprising and angering Democrats. He did not, according to someone briefed on the meeting, provide specifics. One the proposals . . . would relax regulation and temporarily get rid of certain taxes in order to lure private industry into the market for these distressed assets.

That approach has been rejected by Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans and, to this point, the White House. During the meeting, according to someone briefed on it, Sec. Henry Paulson told those assembled that the approach was not workable.

More...

Instead of working towards a fair, effective and appropriate proposal and solution for the credit/mortgage crisis on Wall Street, John McCain's stunt has led to an impasse:

[Senator] Dodd complained that late complications were making the episode sound more like “a rescue plan for John McCain,” the Republican presidential candidate, than one for the country’s financial system. It does no good, Mr. Dodd said, “to be distracted for two or three hours by political theater.”

The senator was apparently alluding to a growing revolt by conservative House Republicans against the proposed $700 billion rescue, and the fact that Senator McCain has not yet endorsed the plan, whose concept runs contrary to the policy positions he has taken for years.

(Emphasis supplied.) Country first my as*.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Unbelievable that Gov. Sarah Palin could be Vice-President of the United States. She's practically sub-verbal and she makes no sense.

Here she is telling Katie Couric the bailout is about health care reform and that reducing taxes must accompany tax reductions. I kid you not.

Transcript below, along with her newest and absurd defense of her Russia is next door comment.

The ACLU today requested the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate its lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan. (Press release will be available here shortly.) The lawsuit charged:

Jeppesen knowingly provided direct flight services to the CIA that enabled the clandestine transportation of the men to secret overseas locations, where they were tortured and subjected to other "forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" under the agency's "extraordinary rendition" program.

More...

So the Great Photo Op occurred. President Bush was, properly, flanked by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. McCain was at one end. Obama was at the other.

The entire circus was a bad joke. This was a disastrous play by John McCain imo. He looks like a fool playing politics, and lousy politics at that.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only