Hank Kalet

This is a tough spot, because the two candidates are arguing two separate lines — McCain is focusing on the surge, Obama on the larger question of Iraq. I know where I stand, but I’m not sure that a discussion like this, when it occurs in different languages, offers the public much. I’m just not sure that the public will be able to parse it.

Maverick! Maverick! Maverick!

I wish John McCain would stop this nonsense about handing the health care system over to the government. Someone needs to ask him why that would be so bad, given the failure of the private system to provide health care to all.

Jim Lehrer is getting angry at these guys, legitimately, I think, for not answering his question. If they are planning to bail out the financial sector then where do they get the money to do what they want to do?

John McCain has some basic themes he is hitting, some that are fine, some that are the standard cliches — earmark reform, cut government spending, spend more on defense, Obama is liberal, etc.

Obama is targeting the culture of the last eight years and the anti-regulatory attitude.