Tomorrow night is the vice-presidential debates between Joe Biden (D) and Sarah Palin (R). Hard to say what will happen from the debate or the aftermath thereof. So much pre-debate spin and then there is the debate format itself which will not be anywhere near as freewheeling as the the first debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. My guess, considering how every occurence by them will be endlessly parsed by commentators, very little will be said that might cause the campaigns grief. In other words, it will be endlessly boring. I might just watch the college football game and then check back afterwards on the post debate shows.

After being nearly totally absent when the financial crisis first struck last week, President Bush is seemingly popping up every day with a short statement or speech. In truth, he has been virtually non-entity politically since the beginning of the year. Then again, he has not really shown anything leadership on any matters of consequence this year. He is the lamest of lame duck presidents. One thing, though, which struck as interesting is his appearance as of late. He looks very pale with a a very grey head of hair as one would get when under a very stressful life. When his father, the 41st president left office in 1993, he was 68 years old but the current president is just 62 now and looks much older than his father ever did.

Current election polls are showing a steady lead for Obama right now. If the election was to be held now, he would get an electoral college landslide victory. But there still is 5 weeks to go and I do not think the lead will be as large then as it is now. However, the economic situation will not improve in the interim and anything else, this will dictate the election results.

One consequence of the nearing election date is that there is a massive uptick of advertising on television. The presidential candidates have advertising continually for months but now the down ballot races for governor and senator are intensifying too. This week, we are starting to see many of the congressional candidates advertising and for the state house races too. This election is going to be a doozy.