C'mon eds, neither of those threads were particularly rancorous as political debates go around here and this is big news.

And, again, if you want a way to restrict sock-puppets that doesn't involve my giving you a bunch of personal information, I'd be happy to register.

'Kay.

Someone asked which polls I read. I read lots of them. Obama's looking good in Colorado. Rasmussen leans slightly to the right of the other polls consistently. Not huge, but it's there. Rasmussen also lags slightly behind other polls--it's deliberate--Rasmussen does it to filter out "noise".

I think the national poll that shows McCain 10 points behind is an outlier. I thought the same of the poll that showed McCain 10 points ahead right after the convention.

I think Obama's ahead a couple of points--*that's* what the majority of polls are showing--somewhere from 2 to 5 on the national front.

Fivethirtyeight.com is my favorite poll-compilation site right now.

Among other things, a couple of its bloggers are traveling to the various ground operations of both parties in the swing states. It's interesting stuff if you like that sort of thing.

As for McCain pulling out of the debates--Josh Marshall on talkingpointsmemo.com that the bail-out deal is nearly complete--McCain's not needed--or wanted. If he really felt the need to attend to the crisis, he should have done it several days ago.

And I just never think it's a good idea to use the (non)campaign tactics of Jimmy Carter when he was in the White House.