This and that

Well I thought I'd be able to have a debate review yesterday. Turns out I still don't know what to think. The problem is that Sarah Palin's appeal escapes me a bit. It's the same problem I had with Obama at the start of this campaign. I couldn't wrap my mind around why people supported him when he so consistently lost on points in every debate. I've mentioned it before, the "eh, I like him/her..." seems to be the most important factor. So while simple scoring of the debate would seem to indicate that Biden won, because Palin was likeable, and didn't screw up she might actually move the dial further. I'm excited to see the polls on Monday... but until then I'm a terrible judge of what might happen. As such, I'm not comfortable speculating.

It should also be remembered that this is the VP debate. Even when Quale had his "you're no John Kennedy" moment the polls hardly moved. So maybe this whole exercise is really not all that important to the process as a whole.

Some sort of good news is that the House finally passed the bailout package. It was so stuffed with pork and "sweeteners" that I can't believe they weren't blushing while voting for it. However, something is better than nothing. The market didn't respond. The conventional wisdom was that the stock prices had anticipated the package passing and didn't go up because it was already factored in. I'm sure that this package wasn't the best thing we could have, but not passing it would have meant another insane blood-letting. Maybe we'll have some stablity in the market now though. It's possible that the worst is over and we'll be able to claw back a bit. P:E ratios are good and by the points we'd expect the market to go up... still it'll take some couragous folks to prime the pump and get it moving.