With the economy tanking, you probably don’t have any money left in your bank account anymore so you really don’t have anything better to do than watching another two-and-a-half hour Presidential debate. Luckily, John McCain and Barack Obama are facing off at a “town hall meeting” tonight in Nashville. It’s going to be great because all the questions are supposedly being asked by undecided voters and we all know how smart those people are. Get excited!

9:10 PM- With McCain going on about having the government renegotiate people’s mortgages and helping taxpayers Obama might want to mention how Republicans torpedoed plans to provide aid to struggling homeowners that were part of the bailout package and later shot down a separate stimulus plan for taxpayers.

9:29 PM- “My friends, some of this $700 billion ends up in the hands of terrorist organizations.” I guess Goldman Sachs and the Weathermen are right up there with Al Qaeda. I’m just glad that a hero like John McCain considers me his close personal friend in these dangerous times.

9:37 PM- I thought the gloves were supposed to be coming off in this one. This is pretty tame so far.

9:39 PM- McCain may have something there, nailing Jello to the wall really is a pain in the ass.

9:43 PM- I’m glad Obama is making sure to be clear about how his tax cut will affect small businesses.

9:46 PM- Oh man! McCain isn’t wearing a lapel pin! Either he’s a secret jihadist like Obama or he figured Sarah Palins gaudy flag bauble from the other night was big enough for the both of them.

9:47 PM- Drinking game rules for the evening: One shot every time McCain says “my friends.” Good luck staying conscious if you try to keep up.

9:48 PM- Did John McCain just say that nuclear power is the best solution for cleaning up the environment? Why yes, yes he did.

9:50 PM- I might be backing Obama, but I still love it when McCain and Palin tell us Americans how great we are.

9:50 PM- I might be backing Obama, but I still love it when McCain and Palin tell us Americans how great we are.

9:53 PM- That one?!? I guess Bill Clinton isn’t the only one who has trouble acknowledging Barack Obama by name. Or maybe McCain just forgot his name like he did with the Spanish President.

9:58 PM- Is it really such a bad thing to fine small businesses that don’t insure their workers?

10:04 PM- I present this McCain quote without comment: “America is the greatest force for good in the history of the world.”

10:05 PM- OK, I can’t resist commenting on that quote just a little teensy bit.

10:06 PM- This question about the economy affecting our ability to be Team America World Police is gold for Obama. He’s doing a great job linking Republican foreign policy to the economic problems.

10:12 PM- “Beneficially affect the situation” That’s an ugly piece of grammar right there.

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Debates Round 2: John McCain Talks To His Friends

I’m still paranoid that the Republicans are going to steal this election like they did the last two times, but I also can’t help but notice that the numbers are starting to look pretty good for the Democrats. New polls show Obama making major gains in the key “battleground” states where all the soccer moms and angry white men have their secret meetings or whatever it is they do that decide who gets to be President.

McCain’s lead is narrowing in Indiana and North Carolina while Obama is pulling way ahead in Ohio, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin. All of this comes right after the McCain campaign announced it was giving up on Michigan, which had once been considered a crucial tossup state.

In more good news for Obama, apparently old Republicans are dying off and all the college kids are registering as Democrats. Experts are also saying that Obama may be doing even better than the numbers suggest since polls are taken from land lines and the youngsters who make up his fan base only know how to communicate via text messages and those new fangled iPhones.

All of this sounds pretty awesome, but I’m still terrified of a McCain victory. Being a Democrat is a lot like being a Knicks fan. Whenever I expect them to win, the Dems somehow end up blowing it (and come to think of it, John Kerry bears a striking resemblance to former Knicks center Chris Dudley). No matter what the numbers are, I still feel like Republican trickery or Dem incompetence could mess things up for Obama. Pretty much no lead is big enough that I won’t be praying harder than Eliot Spitzer at an STD clinic when election day rolls around.

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Too Good To Be True?

As the global economy staggers on crazy legs and even rich people stop taking taxicabs in New York City, the McCain campaign, solidly losing for the first time, has struck back like a vicious, cornered animal in the run-up to tonight’s debate. We knew they were mean; the election until now had proved them to be brutally calculating and soulless. But with their chips literally down, McCain/Palin doesn’t have anything left to lose, and they’re cashing in on fear and hatred and sound bites.

They can’t talk about the economy, can’t offer any means of fixing it, or of denying their connection to it, and no one wants to talk about the Middle East. Harking on Rev. Wright runs the risk of reminding all the people they’ve convinced Obama is a Muslim that he is, in fact, a Christian.

So the McCain campaign has piped up their ridiculous focus on Obama’s association with Bill Ayers, a 63-year-old Professor of Education at the University of Illinois. Both were on the board of a community anti-poverty group eight years ago in Chicago. This is the man you’ve heard called a “terrorist” by no less than Potential-President-in-Waiting Sarah Palin (never forget).

One thing’s for sure: whatever Ayers participated in when Barack Obama was eight years old should not have bearing on your life right now. That a he once hosted a coffee for Obama should not be more important than whether you should be stuffing your mattress with dollar bills and running to the bank.

If there’s ever been a time in the recent history of America when Americans need sound leadership, concerted action and real truth on issues, it’s right now. As our current President phrased it, “this sucker” going down is affecting everyone. Do you know a single person unconcerned about the economy? Have your conversations turned to little else in recent days? Exactly. So why Bill Ayers, why now, and why do our Republican candidates think he is more important than your money?

Ayers is a distinguished professor these days — which surely loses him some points among McCain’s base, if they even know — though I guarantee that 60% hear “terrorist” and think “Muslim” and 40% hear “’60s radical” and think “militant black activist.” The Republicans just need the scary words. Ayers, a Caucasian, whose most recent books contain titles like “The Good Preschool Teacher” and “City Kids, City Teachers” is being linked to events nearly forty years old and buried  — because he’s since worked with Obama on education reform and anti-poverty efforts.

It’s a dispicable low, even for Republicans. At the same time that they’re scaring middle American with their favorite terrorist fantasies, they’re trying to distract aging Americans who just watched their 401k drop with reminisces of what it was like to have domestic chaos and riots in the streets.

Nevermind that Ayers’ radical activism stemmed from a fierce fight for civil rights in the late 1960s and ’70s, and that the group of young angry idealists who blew up statues and buildings together thought they could make their fucked-up world a better place, make it “classless” and more free. They were furious about the escalation of unjust foreign wars, and they tried to do something about it because they didn’t have blogs. They were a largely privileged group who cared enough about shaking up the unjust system to align themselves outside the status quo. The Weathermen’s greatest tragedy was perpetrated on themselves, when a bomb they had been preparing blew up three of them, including Ayers’ girlfriend, at a Greenwich village townhouse. You won’t hear that part from McCain, who only needs your fear.

But these guys named themselves after a line from a Bob Dylan song, for Christ’s sake. They were never a real threat to the American way of life forty years ago, and an aged professor who once believed equality was worth a fight has no place being brought into the national discourse in a time of very real crisis. We need to be talking about how to make the market stop bleeding and how to make the credit come back — and how average Americans are going to do through this, and just what the fuck the government is doing with our money. We need answers and a way foward, not false exaggerations of history from people who have never studied it.

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Palling Around About Bill Ayers And The Weathermen Underground

9:02 pm - Hi Gwen. Who gets to go first? We shall soon find out! Palin asked if she could call Biden Joe. I was sort of cute. Biden kicks it off!

9:04 pm - Joe says that Bush’s economic policies are the worst we’ve ever had and that Barry O is gonna fix this shit with his 4 basic critera which are as follows: 1. Blah 2. Blah 3. Blah 4. Blah. Rebuttle, Governor?

9:06 pm - Well, I betcha yer gunna hear some fear about the economy from the parents on the sidelines of the kids games, donchaknow.

9:10 pm - Sarah Palin Prophesizes That Hockey Moms Shall Rise and Demand Oversight Of Our Savings And Protection From Debt!

9:21 pm - Joe just called McCain’s healthcare plan the “Ultimate bridge to nowhere.” Got a big laugh. I think even Palin thought it was funny.

9:23 pm - Just because Palin did the right thing with a windfall profits tax in Alaska doesn’t mean that McCain’s gonna go it. But it’s hard to understand how Palin just won the round on energy.

9:31 pm - Aaand she just denied that Global Warming is caused by people. But then she just went on to say we need to curb emissions. Oh, and increase drilling too, especially in areas that are protected.

9:40 pm - We’re losing our TV. The blog is over! Sorry!

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Vice Presidential Debate!

8:45 pm - Well, here we are with exactly 15 minutes before this horror show begins. All three networks are on break, but I can’t help but point out, again, that Keith Olbermann is one annoying, annoying motherfucker.

8:59 pm - Countdown is coming to an end here, thank God, but he just cut to Chris Matthews and he looks like some kind of deranged Mr. Rogers. I can’t pay attention to what he’s talking about.

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VP Shitshow Pregame

Be there.

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Debate Live Blog! Tonight! 9pm!

 It’s time someone took a stand for children’s right not to be forced into this kind of thing by corn-loving grown ups. We will take that stand. This will be our cause.

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The Children, The Poor Children

In case you’ve been in a coma or something all day long and didn’t hear, Congress failed to pass the $700 billion Wall Street bailout today - quite the surprise - and nobody thought it a secret from the day traders. Soo… the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 777 points today, the largest single day point drop in the history of time. There’s a silver lining here though. Since seven is just about the luckiest number there is, things have go to be looking up from here.

The Republican leadership promised up half their caucus to help pass the bill. Only a third of them (65 to be precise) ended up voting for it. They of course had their reasons. In the view of one Texas Congressman Jeb Hensarling, the United States was today saved from “the slippery slope to socialism.” Wow. Give this guy some points for consistency. He really is a Reagan Republican. Right down to his slick 80s ‘do.

So anyway, half the votes the Republican leadership promised didn’t materialize. Given that it’s their job to round up votes and enforce party discipline it’s probably pretty easy to see who’s at fault, right? Perhaps, the GOP leader or the GOP whip. Or maybe even the GOP deputy whip if this was his assignment. WRONG! OMG you’ll never guess who it was!

“This is not a partisan crisis, this is an economic crisis,” said Deputy Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor, who said that 94 Democrats also refused to go along with the bill. He described the vote as the result of “Speaker Pelosi’s failure to listen and failure to lead.”

House Republican Conference Chairman, Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida, said “he was disappointed that the process that yielded a bipartisan approach took a very marked, partisan tone at the end of the debate.”

The real loser here though is not the Wall Street traders to shareholders or the American people. No, the real loser is John McCain. The poor man suspended his campaign at the height of campaign season last week to travel to Washington and help broker the deal that today came completely unglued. The selflessness! The clear absence of ulterior political motives! Call me a cynic, but it just shows that you can’t get ahead in Washington by doing the right thing. Well, looks like everyone involved will get another chance. Because this problem isn’t going away any time soon.

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Who Can Bail Out the Bail Out?

This is not meant to be partisan, it’s just a fact: every time John McCain opens his mouth, somewhere, a new-born baby kitten is smashed to death with a giant rubber mallet. It’s true. I’ve been watching it happen all night. The only thing more punishing than watching that debate is watching that debate while trying to be funny on a live blog.The teevee pundits (minus that libtard whiner Olbermann) all agree that Old Out to Lunch walked away with the victory even though Obama managed to seem more presidential. And they’re right.

Let’s face it. Seeming like a statesman isn’t exactly a feat when you’re sharing a stage with Assy McGeezer while he’s waving his arms and shouting about how a diplomatic mission to Iran would precipitate a second Holocaust. Anyone whose ever been shouted down by a crazy old relative at the Thanksgiving table knows how Obama must be feeling tonight. No doubt he’s right now telling Michelle something along the lines of, “I swear I would have punched him, but he’s just so fucking old.”

But, in the end I think this is probably a net gain for Obama. Next time he’ll know that McCain is going to come out swinging - and by swinging, I mean obsessively ranting about earmarks while drool dribbles out the right side of his mouth. McCain’s not going to top this performance and when he’s still saying the same things he said tonight three weeks from now, he’ll have revealed himself to be more-or-less a one trick – that trick being the oldest living survivor of the Jackson admistration.

Barry’s gotta step it up a little bit though. And if McCain is going to continue to be this crazy and condescending, politeness alone isn’t going to do the trick. He has to up the irony and the sarcasm. Tonight everyone thought Barry was going to be the condescending one. He doesn’t have to be a dick, but our buddy from Chicago definitely needs to start making fun Old Straight Talk a little bit. Get the laughs Barry, and you’ll get the White House.

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Debate Wrap Up

And Now, Cynics Party proudly presents the Debate in America Live blog.

9:00 pm - Just a minute away. Wolf Blitzer is talking. Jim Lehrer is going to be there. He’s going to be asking questions supposedly about National Security, but who is going to talk about that while the economy is tanking? Nobody, that’s who. McCain has been in DC “getting things done” all week long to make up for the fact that he’s terrible on the economy and Obama is going to be making him look really really old. HERE WE GO!

Editors Note: Your Lead Cynic Greg Wasserstrom is basically illiterate. Right now, he’s dictating this post to a team of trained monkeys, so if there are spelling or grammatical errors, or entire words missing, or entire passages are completely incoherent, that’s why. Just remember, it’s all for you. So appreciate what you’ve been given and cut me some fucking slack!

9:02 pm - After awkward moment, Lehrer says hello. He explains that foreign policy (of course) includes the “global financial crisis” (hahaha) which means the big shitpile American Economy. And out they come! Applause, shaking hands. Hooray!

9:05 pm - Lehrer starts with queston on the economy. Obama gets to start to explain where he stands on it. It’s a defining moment in our history: we could have a president we like! Oh, no wait, that’s not what he meant. He meant that the economy is fucked and that McCain is a bad choice. I’m just paraphrasing here. Obama says the bailout needs to have oversight, no bailouts for CEOs and help for homeowners. Hmm… NOT GONNA FLY! Oh, and it’s a one two punch at Bush and McCain!

9:07 pm - Ooh, McCain hasn’t heard that Kennedy is out of the hospital and starts his thing with news that 30 minutes old! Chump! And look, it’s an appeal for bipartisanship. I looove the way the GOP gets all bipartisan happy when 8 years of their policies have wrecked the economy.

9:08 pm - McCain admits he’s old!

9:09 pm - Lehrer pushes back since nobody asnwered his question about how they stand on the bailout bill. Obama says he doesn’t know cause he hasnt seen the thing. Now he’s gonna talk about his judgement, but Im not gonna pay attention… I’m just staring at his lips wanting to kiss them. Ok, wait, focus. He’s supposed to be talking to McCain because this is supposed to be the 5 minute discussion thing. Regulation is important, he says.

9:11 pm - McCain blows off Obama’s jugdment argument saying “A lot of us saw this coming.” OH REEEAAALLY? McCain tells story about Ike holding himself accountable. “Somehow, we’ve lost that,” he says. OH REEEEAAALLY? Thanks, John! You’re going to be chairing the oversight committee hearings for the Bush administration, right?

9:13 pm - How many times are they going to say “Main Street” in connection with the Wall street ciris? Count so far: 6.

9:15 pm - McCain says “we have now presided over the” largest spending increase ever. Thats right! You certainly have. Very observant! His joke about bear DNA didn’t land, that’s for sure!

9:17 pm - Barry O has to defend himself on earmarks because McCain came right at him. Obama takes it to the bigger picture: McCain’s tax cuts for the rich. Does anyone care? Probably not. So far, this is really boring. If I wasn’t frantically typing, I would probably turn it off and cruise for some porn instead.

9:19 pm - Apparently, earmarks are absolutely the most horrific things to come from Washington. “It corrupts people,” he says, shocked.  It’s kind of cute the way he’s obsessed with talking about the one thing he’s kind of good at.

9:20 pm - Jim Lehrer is sort of like a marital counselor trying to get these guys to talk directly to eachother. Senator McCain, say that right to Senator Obama. Go ahead. You can do it. Senator Obama, look Senator McCain in the eye, please. Good. That’s good.

9:22 pm - “The worst thing we can do is raise anybody’s taxes,” according to John McCain. Do I even need to make a joke here?

9:26 pm - McCain is doing a great job steering this debate toward the tiny corner of things he’s done well and Barry is spending the whole thing responding to this earmark and tax code bullshit. How about talking about something relevant like the huge fucking 700 billion dollar nightmare or the war or something. isn’t this supposed to be a foreign policy thing? isn’t this supposed to be about the global economic crisis? how does the US tax code figure into that?

9:29 pm - Obama just listed off a whole slew of economic and domestic priorities. Now, in his response, McCain is babbling about cutting spending and examing agencies. It’s all the same bullshit as always! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Please God Shut up!

9:31 pm - Someone, Please, God, tell me this thing is only an hour long. How long is this?

9:36 pm - I’m trying to approach this with an open mind here. I really am. But every time McCain says anything I’m like throwing up in my mouth. McCain just said that excessive wasteful spending caused the economic crisis. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?  Obama just called it an “orgy of spending”. FINALLY. Now please tell him to SHUT THE FUCK UP.

9:40 pm - McCain loves his Miss Congeniality line. He’s using it now even when its not relevant. Reminds me of the “see you in hell” SNL sketch with Jim Carey from like 15 years ago.

9:42 pm - In listing the consequences of what a loss in Iraq would look like, John McCain just thew out a whole bunch of things that actually have happened.

9:43 pm - OH MY GOD THIS IS GOING TO BE 90 MINUTES LONG? I picked the wrong night to start writing about politics again.

9:44 pm - John McCain just accused Obama of never having a hearing on Iraq. Can we count the hearings that the GOP didn’t have when it comes to Iraq? No. No we cannot. Partially because they never had them but ALSO BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO NUMEROUS.

9:45 pm - Line of the night. “John, you talk about the war like it started in 2007. It started in 2003.”

9:47 pm - Wow. The more McCain talks about Iraq, the more the opinion of independents in CNN’s Ohio focus group drop thru the floor. Keep it up! The Ohio Polit Bureau will end your career!

9:49 pm - Hmm. The more Obama talks about Iraq, the more Democrats, Republicans and Independents don’t give a shit. The line unifies.

9:52 pm - McCain says that Obama helps terror by talking about withdrawal! Hooray! Now lets talk about Afghanistan. Even Jim Lehrer wants to punch these fuckers in the face. Yes, do something in Afghanistan Obama says. More troops, poppy trade, deal with safe havens in Pakistan. How will McCain argue with that? Why, he’s going to make Obama into a war hawk, of course! He’s reckless! Not like you, John McCain!

9:54 pm - We need the Iraqi surge for Afghanistan! We need the Pakistanis to turn against their al-Qaeda wives! We need John McCain!

9:58 pm - I HAVE TO TAKE A BREAK AND EAT SOMETHING FOR FUCKS SAKE. AND WHY IS THERE NO BEER?? I ENTERED INTO THIS COMPLETELY UNPREPARED.

10:02 pm - John McCain has been to Waziristan. He’s fucking been there, okay? He’s been there. He’s fucking gone there, seen it, and been there. Have you, Senator Obama? I think not.

10:05 pm - McCain: “Iran has a lousy government, so their economy is lousy”… See? They are just like us!

10:10 pm - Spank!

10:14 pm - When McCain talks about foreign policy he sounds like a crazy person. He really does. Babbling, repitition. At that point, it doesn’t matter what Obama says because he says it in a known language.

10:15 pm - This is like at Passover when I’m trying to make a point about X, perhaps how I thought George Clooney made a particularly fine film recently, and my Great Uncle Marv, who is 83, starts yelling at me about how Ahmadinajad wants to destory the state of Israel. This is just like that. And let me tell you. I would not want Uncle Marv to be president of the United States.

10:23 pm - So, this thing is almost over right? Like 7 more minutes? Russia? Georgia? Let me explain what needs to happen with that situation: Ahmadinajad wants to wipe the state of Israel off the face of the earth.

10:24 pm - John McCain voted 23 times against alternative energy in 26 years. No I didn’t. Yes you did. No I didn’t. Yes you did. No I didn’t.

10:25 pm -McCain thinks that its less likely to have a 9/11 style attack than “on the day after 9/11.” Whoa, really? He thinks there was a good chance that we’d have a 9/11 style attack two days in a row? That would have been pretty intense. May have even justified an invasion of Iraq! I’m gonna go ahead and say that I think a 9/11 style attack was pretty unlikely on 9/12 and that the odds a better than there would be one, say, tomorrow. I’m sure that’s not what he meant though. Give the guy a break. He’s old.

10:30 pm - Obama says we’re going to have a lot of next to work in the next administration. McCain agrees, but needs to take one more swipe at Obama this time on missile defense. How gracious! Listen old man. Start thinking about your retirement. It can’t possibly come soon enough.

10:35 pm - McCain understand that Obama possesses the same kind of stubborness shown in the current administration. Obama is the same as Bush. That’s a very good point. We hadn’t thought about that.

10:36 pm - McCain: “When I got home from prison….” Uh, sorry, I stopped listening.

Good night.

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Debate in America [25 Updates]