Do I really sound like this?  Hearing my voice on recordings never ceases to surprise me.  Watch my bloggingheads conversation with Eli Lake here.

So I take it that Robert Stacy McCain is unhappy about something.  Offhand, as a sometimes “splenetic conservative” myself, I would suggest that perpetuating internecine feuds along class, educational and generational lines is not going to accomplish anything.  It seems to me that when conservatives are already largely outnumbered among Millennials and post-graduate degree-holders and are becoming more so among college-educated people, and when the GOP is steadily losing the upper-middle class in general, lecturing, or rather berating, “arrogant” young educated professionals is a good way to drive away members of the rising generations even more quickly.  This claim seems particularly hard to credit:

Nothing has corrupted the conservative movement more than this tendency to grab super-bright 20-somethings right out of elite universities and elevate them to positions in the commentariat before they’ve passed any markers of adulthood other than graduating school.

Really?  Was this more corrupting than reflexive obeisance to whatever ill-considered Republican policy was being pushed by the leadership or administration at the time?  More corrupting than the decision of many middle-aged pols and party strategists that the only hope for the future was to push for immigration liberalization?  More corrupting than the near-universal embrace of an unnecessary war by movement leaders?  More corrupting than the numerous apologies written on behalf of the administration’s torture regime?  More corrupting than endorsing every executive power grab and new surveillance powers?  I could go on, but I think you get the point.  I suppose there could be some problem in promoting young graduates too quickly, but had the movement not been doing this I’m pretty sure it would have suffered from much of the same corruption.    

The signals in recent years have been quite clear: if you are privileged or capable enough to go to elite universities for your education and you are at all right-leaning in your views, you will have to apologize for your education or conceal it for the rest of your life to make yourself acceptable to many of your confreres on the right.  Furthermore, should you hold any seemingly or genuinely heterodox views, these will be attributed to your toffy background, which will then be invoked as sufficient reason to ignore you entirely.  At the same time, should you exhibit any behavior or preferences that mark you as “crunchy” or otherwise critical of the culture of acquisition and consumption, you will presumed guilty of one kind of deviationism or another, and obviously if you express opposition to needless wars, abuses of power and trampling on civil liberties you will be presumed to be a left-wing wolf in conservative sheep’s clothing.  These have been the messages sent to the different kinds of dissident and heterodox conservatives over the last six or eight years, and they are not exactly deepening any loyalties.       

Continuing in this fashion portends a future consumed by grievances and cultural cues in which both “defenders of elites” and their critics tell self-reinforcing congratulatory tales to themselves about their superior understanding of reality.  The former will cheer their defense of high standards and wonkery, and the latter will celebrate their Middle American ordinariness and jeer at the poncy gits in the Northeast.  I know this is where this will go because it is already happening.  “Eat your own” is never exactly a winning strategy, but it is an absolutely crazy one when the reason for doing so seems to be based to a significant degree in lifestyle politics and cultural resentments.  In place of one conservative cocoon, there will simply be two, and they will take pride in their lack of understanding of what goes on inside the other one. 

It’s true that Sarah Palin on her own is not the problem, nor is she really at the heart of all this, but neither is she the solution.  Her policy advisors could, I suppose, all be self-taught and homeschooled for their whole lives, but she would still need to be acquainted with the details of major policies sooner rather than later.  Presumably, one would want her advisors to be among the best at what they do regardless of where they come from, and surely it is in that sense that Ross means elites in this post.  Her nomination has become the occasion to express many simmering resentments on all sides, and this entire controversy echoes to some extent the responses provoked by Huckabee’s candidacy, and so she has been treated as the embodiment of whatever the critic or admirer thinks is wrong/right with conservatism.  What all of this back-and-forth avoids is a real debate over policy priorities and what kind of policies conservatives should support.  Ultimately, that reinforces the status quo and works to the detriment of populist conservatives, since it leaves the latter with the undesirable rhetorical framing that understanding policy is less important than life experience. 

Update: McCain responds in another update to his original post, fixating on the remark about “crunchy” conservatism above.  I did not have his criticism of Rod’s book in mind, which I had forgotten about until he mentioned it, but was using the criticism of “crunchy” cons as closet socialists/fascists/whatever as another example of the impulse to hurl abuse at other conservatives without much reason.  McCain says:

Conservatism is a philosophy of government, not a matter of lifestyle preferences.

What McCain may be missing here is that much of the hostility to the “crunchy” con view was a rabid defense of individualism and an angry resentment at anyone trying to “interfere” with self-indulgent habits.  The people who made an idol out of any and all lifestyle preferences as equally valid choices and viewed criticism of bad habits as unforgiveable meddling were the opponents of “crunchy” conservatism.  Ironically, the so-called countercultural voices appealed to authority and tradition, while the defenders of the status quo were reduced to saying something like, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”  “Crunchy” cons and their sympathizers made the mistake of attempting to apply ethical and moral standards in everyday life, which was regularly misunderstood as “politicizing” private life because the critics had an impoverished understanding of politics as only those things pertaining to the state and an almost equally impoverished understanding of culture as mostly those things pertaining to sexuality.    

Conservatism includes within it a philosophy of government, but that is not all it is.  It is surely also a vision of social and moral order, or to the extent that it is a political persuasion it includes within the definition of politics much more than questions of administration and legislation.  We would agree that conservatism is not a matter of “lifestyle preferences”–which is why, among other things, conservatives should not be falling over themselves in adulation over Palin’s preference for hunting and the like–but it seems as if we will have to continue disagreeing on other things.  Most important, we disagree whether a conservatism of place and virtue, which is what I understand traditional conservatism to be, can coexist with the culture of acquisition and consumption.  Conservatism as I understand it calls for restraint and prudence, both of which are discouraged in such a culture, and it assumes the existence of a common good that necessarily involves certain limits on economic behavior, which will either be imposed from within by discipline and self-control or they will eventually be imposed from without.  I would go so far as to say that economic liberty and moral restraint rise and fall together, and as the latter weakens public regulation of economic life is bound to become more severe.   

McCain concludes:

Conservatism isn’t about buying organic groceries at Whole Foods or sitting around quoting Russell Kirk, it’s about constitutional government.

I would agree that conservatism is not defined by buying organic groceries at Whole Foods, but that would have a lot to do with the problems with what Pollan has called Big Organic, but I would reject the idea that what and how we eat has nothing to do with a vision of good order.  I would say that without the cultural moorings of restraint and self-control that are reflected in our habits, constitutional government isn’t possible.  As we have been seeing, the consequences of the culture of acquisition and consumption reveal tremendous dependency, both political and economic, and lead to terrible distortions of the constitutional system.  If quoting Russell Kirk might revive some understanding of these basic truths, it could be a worthwhile thing for conservatives to be doing.

Yet conventional wisdom is often wrong. For a start, as any property analyst can attest, it tends to be self-affirming. The media has leapt on recent polls that show Mr Obama with double-digit margins. But until Friday, when the conservative Drudge Report led on the much narrower two-point lead that Gallup gave Mr Obama, those polls that have not hinted at a landslide have been downplayed. And there have been quite a few.  

The RealClear Politics website’s average of polls, which gives Mr Obama a lead of 6.8 per cent over Mr McCain, offers a better guide to the situation.  It compares to John Kerry’s lead just a few weeks before he lost the 2004 election to Mr Bush. ~Edward Luce

Having been duly chastened about poll averages in the past, I probably ought to say nothing about this one way or the other, but there is a very simple point to be made here.  At a comparable time in the ’04 election, the same RCP average showedMr. Bush ahead by approximately 2 points, which was fairly close to the final result.  It is true that there were some pollsters, most notably Zogby, who were declaring a massive Kerry victory up through the night of the election, but they were spectacularly wrong and were not representative of what the most reliable polls showed.  Those who expect Obama to win with an Electoral College margin similar to that of Clinton ’96 and a comparable 5-6 point lead in the national popular vote seem to have more evidence on their side.  (Fivethirtyeight.com currently projects Obama winning 51.8-46.5 with 347 electoral votes.)  Could that lead widen to become a proper double-digit landslide?  Perhaps, but it seems more likely that the gap will narrow slightly and we will still see Obama winning the vast majority of electoral votes.

Ross is right that populist conservatism needs elites who are not in denial about political realities.  One reason why this is necessary is so that populist conservatism acquires some substance and definition beyond the reflex of deriding Beltway insiders and their all-important cocktails.  What has been amazing to me as I watch and participate in the back-and-forth between Palinites and Palin critics is how readily the admirers of Palin’s so-called populism adopt the definition of populism set by those establishmentarians most instinctively hostile to it.  Under this hostile definition, populism is necessarily loud, proud and ignorant, because this flatters establishmentarian assumptions about their own views.  According to establishmentarians, populists typically know little or nothing about policy, to which those who rally around anyone remotely resembling a populist often reply, “Yes, our candidate knows nothing–isn’t it great?”  The candidate’s admirers think they are sticking it to poncy elitists when they revel in their candidate’s cluelessness and “good instincts,” but they are just helping to confirm the prejudices of anti-populists and reinforce the status quo. 

Rather than offering a coherent alternative on behalf of the many, this kind of populism is readily co-opted and deployed in the service of established interests that have no intention of changing anything important.  In the end, this pseudo-populism anoints existing policy, no matter how flawed and directed to serving particular interests, with the chrism of popular enthusiasm for a certain candidate.  As I said before, populism without policy substance is not populism at all, but a reflex doomed to being rejected as the hollow protest that it is.  The Palinites who want to identify populist conservatism with her are setting up populist conservatism for failure by defining it as little more than lifestyle politics, contempt for mainstream media and the occasional flag-waving. 

This is called populism because crowds will always respond favorably to generic appeals to patriotism, having government work for them and being represented by “one of us,” but in the absence of anything more it grows old pretty quickly.  One way to recognize pseudo-populism is how easy it is, and how quickly it loses its lustre.  One of the most important populist goals ought to be entitlement reform, since there are few things more threatening to the long-term well-being of the people than exploding entitlement costs, but that would entail controversy, political risk and telling the public unpleasant truths about the unsustainability of existing entitlements and the folly of adding on more.  What distinguishes real populism from cheap demaoguery, among other things, is the willingness to tell people that they cannot have it all and to govern as if that were true.

Apparently the Joe the Plumber rhetoric is so insipid that even Palin feels embarrassed to have to use it.  From Tapper:

The Alaska governor said the election in 18 days “is the choice between a candidate who will raise your taxes and that threatens our future, and a leader who’s going to Washington to work for Joe the Plumber, as you heard a lot about last night. And I, I begged our speechwriters, ‘Don’t make me say Joe the Plumber, please, in any speeches.’

“And I was asked, ‘Just one time, just at this fundraiser.'”

Maybe she resents the displacement of old Joe Sixpack from the spotlight.  You would think that she would have more sympathy with her co-running mate as someone whom the McCain camp also failed to vet thoroughly.

The culture war within the conservative movement over Palin will ultimately destroy the movement, and the Republican Party, if both sides don’t come to some sort of an understanding. ~D.R. Tucker

This invests Palin’s candidacy and the reactions to it with far more significance than they deserve.  Assuming McCain loses, which seems likely, the selection of Palin is of limited, temporary importance for the political fortunes of the GOP.  After next month, barring some tremendous changes in the campaign, Palin will return to Alaska and will not become a dominant force in Republican politics nationally.  The reactions to Palin are important insofar as they reflect existing tensions and resentments among conservatives, but Palin serves here mainly as a focus for old arguments over the direction of movement and party.  On one side, you mostly have her critics who are also typically critical of either the pseudo-populism practiced by the GOP for the past several decades or who are critical of the prominence of social issues in Republican rhetoric.  This does not break down neatly, as you have Peggy Noonan, who cannot fairly be described as anything other than pro-life, now describing Palin as an example of “a new vulgarization in American politics,” and Kathleen Parker, an early Palin booster, declaring her “out of her league.”  Quin Hillyer at AmSpec has been shaking his head in disbelief for weeks.  

While there may be other critics who have found the prominent role of social issues in justifying Palin’s selection dissatisfying, it is not accurate to say that all criticism of Palin on the right is simply a matter of Northeast corridor establishmentarians, moderates and pro-choicers scoring points off their old foes.  To the extent that disagreement over Palin does expose existing rifts, the latter are trying to advance their old arguments against the prominence of (pseudo-)populist appeals and a focus on abortion in Republican rhetoric by pointing to Palin as an example of the sort of political mistakes these priorities encourage, but what Palinites seem not to understand is that they are playing into the hands of establishmentarians and pro-choice Republicans by identifying her candidacy as an embodiment of social conservatism.  Insofar as her candidacy is a failure, her admirers have set themselves up to have their views tied to the fate of that candidacy.

Tucker makes an odd claim that wrecks his entire argument:

Conservative unease with Palin has little to do with her educational level or economic class; Rick Santorum is highly-educated and not exactly “working-class”, but he would have generated the same negative heat from the folks who currently dislike Palin had McCain selected him as his running mate.

Actually, educational level and economic class have a great deal to do with it, but more because Palin and her admirers seem to revel in touting both.  Above all, it is her bearing that grates on a lot of her critics.  Quoth Noonan: “She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation….”  Now Santorum would not have been selected because he had just lost his re-election bid in a swing state in a rout and he openly and strenuously opposed McCain during the primaries, but few on the right would say that Santorum did not, on the whole, speak seriously.  Sometimes he was overzealous and perhaps hyperbolic, but if there was anything the matter with Santorum it was rather the grim seriousness he seemed to bring to everything, at least in the final year of his Senate career. 

Let’s imagine for a moment that Santorum was a viable VP choice who had just somehow been re-elected to the Senate and who had not spent much of the presidential campaign speaking out against John McCain as little more than a sell-out.  There is no question that he would have generated the same hostility from the left (and from libertarians), and his foreign policy views would be just as dissatisfying to non-interventionists, but it is undeniable that he would be taken far more seriously by all of Palin’s critics because, whatever one may say against him, he is a significantly more serious figure with a much firmer grasp on policy.  Even his outlandish foreign policy views are views that he has developed; he would not have been fed lines about Venezuela and Russia–he dreaded the Venezuelan “menace” before it was trendy.  He could cite the unorthodox policies he championed from prison reform to foreign debt relief to Africa AIDS programs to pushing for action on Darfur; whether or not one finds his policies worth supporting, he had a record that could be taken seriously.  His public remarks were not simply cookie-cutter, three-legs-of-the-Republican-stool talking points.  As the Brooks column on Santorum from two years ago shows, there was respect for Santorum’s accomplishments that transcended disagreements over social and cultural issues.  Santorum’s choice to make his campaign a referendum on hyper-aggressive foreign policy, which was absolutely crazy in 2006 and would be even more so today, distracted everyone from his genuine strengths and his record of collaborating with members of the other party on his unorthodox agenda.  It would have been impossible to dismiss Santorum as a lightweight, as Brooks noted back in ’06:

His discussion of the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, for example, is as sophisticated as anything in Barack Obama’s recent book.   

Considering how highly Brooks regards Obama’s sophistication, that is high praise indeed.  That was the tragedy of Santorum, who went beyond even McCain in making hawkishness and obsessing about alleged foreign threats almost the entirety of his re-election campaign and who failed to emphasize all those elements of his career that made him an impressive Senator.  Santorum would have, incidentally, done far, far more to reinforce McCain’s image as the unorthodox Republican than Palin and her thin record could have ever done, but the combativeness that drove him to fixate on the “gathering storm” that he imagined (and I do mean imagined) was looming on the horizon is same trait that kept pushing him into conflict with McCain and ultimately wore out Pennsylvanian voters’ patience. 

There seems to be an unfortunate, growing tendency among Palinites to assume that her conservative critics must dislike her ultimately because she is pro-life (or religious), which misses all the ways in which she and Santorum, for example, are so profoundly different in terms of qualifications, understanding of policy and preparation for high office.  In fact, I would say that had Santorum somehow still been in office and had not been such a harsh critic of McCain, he would have been the new fusionists’ dream selection, satisfying interventionists and social conservatives equally, and his selection would have driven home how blind the GOP is to the profoundly misguided nature and deep unpopularity of their foreign policy vision.  Even so, what you would not have seen with a McCain/Santorum campaign are attacks from conservative writers and pundits that Santorum was unprepared and clueless.  In recognizing the truth of that the Palinites might learn an important lesson about their favorite candidate.

There is an idea circulating out there that the killer combo of Joe the Plumber and “spread the wealth” may save the election for McCain.  Now you might say that this is just whistling past the graveyard, but that doesn’t do it credit.  This is really more like four-part harmony singing in a freshly-dug grave as the dirt is being piled on. 

This is something that I didn’t elaborate on last night, but the idea that the message of Spread The Wealth would be a political loser at the present time is bizarre, which makes McCain’s insistence on identifying Obama as the “spread the wealth” candidate even more bizarre.  I mean, does McCain want to get crushed in a landslide?  Let’s think about this.  There is an economic downturn coming on the heels of an era of wage stagnation and growing economic inequality, the financial sector has imploded thanks to the combined blunders of government and holders of concentrated wealth and Obama’s use of a phrase that on its own could easily be mistaken for an expression of neo-Harringtonian distributism is supposed to be politically radioactive?  Consolidation of power, concentration of wealth and centralism all stand condemned for having created the present fiasco, and there is supposed to be a political downside to talking about distributing wealth? 

Contra Pethokoukis, Long’s slogan was Share Our Wealth, which definitely had a more direct appeal to economic solidarity and redistribution than “spread the wealth” suggests.  In theory, a true believer in an unfettered market would hold that his economic model more equitably and efficiently creates and then spreads the wealth, but there is no disagreement that wealth can and should be “spread around.”  McCain halfway hinted at this last night, but he had already tried to make the use of the phrase into something terrible.  Integral to a social vision of a broad middle class of property-holders is the idea that wealth is widely and more or less evenly distributed, and there is an assumption in this vision that this is best for political and social stability, as it prevents the sort of dangerous stratification that prevails in societies in which a wealthy oligarchy dominates a poor underclass.  If conservatives cede distributist language to left-liberals, they are not only abandoning an important part of their intellectual and political tradition, but they are also surrendering their ability to speak on behalf of middle-class Americans and they appear to be giving up on the idea that a relatively more free market system can better distribute wealth than a welfarist system organized by the central government.

Then again, the frequent attack on Obama’s redistributive policies* seems bizarre in the wake of the bailout that McCain also supported, which is very plainly a redistribution of our wealth to financial institutions.  The argument in its favor is supposed to be that we will all suffer if it is not done, but there is no question that it is ultimately redistributive.  No one who supported the bailout can credibly fling the label socialist as an insult or use “spread the wealth” as a bludgeon.  It is a clear act of the government using its power to take taxpayers’ dollars (or funds borrowed on public credit) and allocate it elsewhere.  Even though the bailout provokes at least a large plurality to strong opposition, both candidates supported it, so it is not clear that the bailout or talk of redistributive policies hurts one more than the other.

*Let’s also remember that this entire discussion is premised on the assumption that Obama would reduce taxes on most middle-class households, and the issue at stake is whether he should raise taxes on those with higher incomes.

Why am I hearing all this glowing stuff about my president this fall? Oh, yeah: It’s a way of knocking Governor Palin. What a dunce, certainly as compared with that brainiac Reagan. ~Jay Nordlinger

Nordinger’s remarks reflect what seems to me to be a very strange habit on the right, which is to forego independent analysis of the merits of a candidate and base one’s judgement on the degree of hostility shown to the candidate by one’s opponents.  Ever since the cognoscenti wrongly declared Reagan to be lacking in intelligence and policy acumen, it is now gospel that any criticism of a Republican politician that says he or she is lacking in intelligence or policy acumen is equally wrong.  It might be that Reagan had demonstrated a better grasp of policy and had a greater interest in ideas than his critics gave him credit for; it does not necessarily follow that Palin is being criticized in the same inaccurate way.  Perhaps in terms of raw intelligence Reagan and Palin may not be all that different, but how did each one make use of that intelligence?  One of the standard raps against Mr. Bush is that he is not intelligent, which is not really true.  What is so much worse about Mr. Bush is that he is reasonably intelligent but seems to lack interest in learning about things he doesn’t know, and he seems unusually resistant to information that does not conform to his assumptions.  Palin displays many of the same characteristics, but in addition to an apparent lack of curiosity there is apparently a kind of resentment of those who know more than she does, which is the worst trait in someone not already familiar with policy matters.     

Were the Republicans to nominate for President one Mr. Camacho (warning: some profanity) and a journalist said something unflattering about his grasp of the finer points of agricultural policy, you can already hear the refrains of “they also said Reagan was a dunce” and “who expects a candidate to know everything about price supports or to know the name of the agriculture minister of Peru?”  (Of course, no one ever asks Palin questions that are anywhere near that detailed.)  It’s as if there is no objective way to compare different candidates, so conservatives have to rely on the extent of media hostility to determine their candidates’ merits. 

Another response is to make excuses steeped in anti-intellectualism: “Palin may not know much, but she has good instincts.”  Why are the two always set in opposition to each other?  Why is it that the people with good instincts are invariably uninterested in knowledge?  How can they have good instincts if they do not have an instinct for wanting to learn more at all times?  It is undoubtedly true that Palin has practical knowledge about a number of things, but what we do not see from her defenders is any kind of argument that her practical knowledge is applicable in the position she is trying to obtain.  The argument that Palinites keep coming back to is that Palin and Reagan are the same and are being treated the same way by journalists who are supposed to be imputing stupidity to anyone who espouses a right-leaning point of view, which has the effect of diminishing Reagan rather than building up Palin.  McCain has adopted a similar argument as a way of defending his decision, and this is that many people said Reagan had no foreign policy experience (even though he understood the relevant issues in some depth) and people say the same thing about Palin, so they must therefore be wrong about Palin’s readiness.  We heard the argumentum ad Reaganum when Bush was criticized for his lack of foreign policy understanding and his lack of readiness, but using Reagan to cover Bush’s weaknesses was absolutely wrong then, and it is wrong again in this case.

I have my komboloi in hand to ward off the utter boredom.  Here we go.

McCain: People are angry.  There is excess.  People are angry.  McCain targets mortgage lenders, but wants to keep home ownership high.  Repeats his crazy mortgage bailout plan.  Pretends that his plan “puts homeowners first.”  Obama: This is worst crisis since 1380, and I know many of us still remember that one…Okay, he didn’t say that.  He wants to penalize outsourcing; repeats his middle-class tax cut bit.  Notes that McCain’s plan is a giveaway to banks, which puts Obama closer to conservatives than McCain. 

Obama: Usual refrain about tax breaks for oil companies, tax cuts for his famous 95%.  Fighting for Joe the Plumber’s vote.  McCain: Obama said spread the wealth alone; McCain wants Joe to spread it around.  This is actually more insipid than the last debate.  McCain: Why increase taxes?  Why would you do that?  Joe the Plumber isn’t happy with that.  Apparently Joe the Plumber has replaced Joe Sixpack as the embodiment of Middle America.  Obama says he would prefer to be an anarcho-capitalist, but circumstances don’t allow it.

Obama repeats his claim that he supports net spending cut.  Eliminate programs that don’t work–bold move!  These programs are always nameless, which is probably one of the reasons they don’t work.  Ethic of responsibility?  What?  That’s dangerously close to calling on people to accept austerity.  McCain is stuttering, and reverts to his litany about energy independence.  In the mythical world where we have energy independence, life will be beautiful.  Perhaps Aeolus will power the entire grid.  Spending freeze!  (Obama says that’s a hatchet.)  Ethanol is bad; eliminate tariff on Brazilian sugar-based ethanol.  Fight the earmarks!  What does McCain have against planetariums?  McCain wants to use hatchets and scalpels.

Hatchets and scalpels and katanas, oh my!

Obama: You’re just more of the same, John.  But where is Joe the Plumber in all this?  I believe he may have been left behind.  McCain: “You’re not convincing”–it’s not very convincing to say that your opponent isn’t convincing.

McCain: Why are your allies being so mean to me and Sarah?  Repudiate John Lewis!  Obama’s spent more money on negative ads than anyone (because he’s spent a lot more on ads than anyone else).  He broke his word on public financing!  Now it’s getting a bit more heated.  Obama: All of McCain’s ads are negative, but no one cares about this, so let’s talk issues.  Obama starts referring to 527s.  Wow, this debate has become the inside baseball World Series. 

McCain: I’m way more liberal than you give me credit for.  My stem-cell research and immigration positions are anathema to my supporters.  Let Joe the Plumber keep his wealth!  Obama:  Well, your supporters want me dead, so what do you think about that?  But I don’t think that you’re like George Wallace.  Heck, you’re not even like Bull Connor.  McCain is about to go nuts.  And…now he starts getting angry.  McCain: Our crowds are great, and I repudiate all kinds of people.  Isn’t it strange that Obama is the one to keep bringing up the terrorist line? 

Ayers and ACORN have landed.  McCain: ACORN possibly destroying the fabric of democracy.  Obama: Ayers is an education professor, but used to be despicable.  They were on the Annenberg board, as were some Republicans.  Ayers will not be in the White House–that’s a stroke of luck.  ACORN?  I hardly even know those guys!  I am so mainstream it’s not even funny.  No, really, it’s not.  McCain: I’m not saying that this stuff matters; I’m just informing people!

Weird question about the VP candidates from Schieffer.  He’s basically asking each candidate to explain why it would be better if he died.  Obama: Biden is awesome.  Blather, blather, talking points.  McCain: Palin is even more awesome.  Rehashing the myth of Palin.  “A reformer through and through.”  McCain wants to get rid of the old boy network in Washington–I have a suggestion how he might help reach that goal.  He hasn’t answered the question.

Obama: You can’t help Sarah Palin’s baby with your spending freeze!  McCain: Biden was wrong on many foreign policy issues.  (That’s true–he has agreed with McCain most of the time.)  “Why do we have to spend more?” spake the mortgage bailout king.  McCain: Middle Eastern and Venezuelan oil will not be imported when I’m President, because I don’t understand how the oil market works.  Apparently Russian oil is okay!  Nuclear waste storage is a piece of cake.  The litany on energy again.  Obama: I agree with John’s crazy 10-year plan.  China and Saudi Arabia make their usual guest appearances as foreign villains of the evening.

McCain: Drill here, drill now!  Don’t just look at drilling.  Colombian free trade is brilliant–why does Obama oppose the agreement?  Why does he love drugs and hate young people?  No-brainer!  Obama: Oh, I understand.  I don’t like death squads killing union members. 

Did McCain just play the Hoover card on Obama?  That’s some kind of audacity.

Joe the Plumber again–drink!

The unanswered question of the campaign: “Who is the real Joe the Plumber?”

I take it that McCain doesn’t want to spread the wealth.  He really dislikes that phrase.  I guess that means he wants to lump the wealth all together.  Presumably it will all be under Henry Paulson’s control.

McCain: No litmus tests, but Roe is bad and I’m a federalist.  Justices should be chosen based on their qualifications, unlike Vice Presidents.  Did he just say that Obama voted against confirming Breyer?  Obama can also time travel?  He is impressive.  Obama: Roe hangs in the balance, but there is absolutely no litmus test.  McCain: Change the culture of America.  Here comes the Born Alive bill.  This could be interesting.  Obama is hiding behind his old excuse for his vote.  He opposes late-term abortions, except for all those that fall under the exceptions used to facilitate most late-term abortions. 

The end is near, thank goodness.  They’re talking about education.  They have a lot of proposals, but what kind of retraining are they going to offer Joe the Plumber?  Alex Massie responds to Obama:

Put away the video games? Except the ones I have been advertising on!

They’re starting to wrap up.  As agitated as McCain was at certain points tonight, I think he fared a bit better than he has in previous debates.  He didn’t show quite as much contempt for Obama, and he didn’t wander around the stage because he was seated, so right away he was doing better.  Obama seemed more like primary-debate Obama and less like the confident and fluent candidate of the past two debates.  This was probably the closest to a genuine tie of all three, perhaps because both of them were so uninteresting, but this still ends up being a loss for McCain given the deficit he has to overcome.

Update: Apparently focus groups and instant polls among undecideds rate Obama the winner again.  I think one of the reasons why my assessment of McCain is more positive is that I didn’t spend much time looking at the broadcast.  I listened to the debate as a blogged, so I didn’t actually see most of McCain’s twitchy behavior, which seems to have gone over very poorly.  Even when listening, I noticed the exasperation in his voice, but he didn’t sound as the undecideds thought he appeared.