A rough night for Gov. Sarah Palin in my hometown of Philadelphia!

What happened here?

TIME’S Michael Scherer writes on Swampland:

This morning John McCain put out a list of 100 former ambassadors who are supporting his campaign. Number two is Lenore Annenberg, the wife of Ambassador William Annenberg, the founder of the Annenberg Institute of Reform, which funded the Annenberg Challenge, which once had two famous board members: former “domestic terrorist” William Ayers and Sen. Barack Obama.

So either we should all be outraged that John McCain is supported by a family who funded a foundation that hired a domestic terrorist, or this whole William Ayers thing is just plain silly. I choose the latter.

Over the past 72 hours, we’ve seen Sarah Palin travel across the country talking up Barack Obama’s past associations and saying the he is “palling around with terrorists…”

I know this is total BS - most smart people in America know this is total BS, but yet she continues to regurgitate the line with ease no real concern for the truth. Not only is she recycling the line over and over, but the press has now picked up on these smears and are reporting them as real news.

Why then isn’t the press covering the fact that Sarah Palin and her husband have close ties to the Alaska Independence Party - a political party in Alaska that wants to succeed from America? Talk about shady associations…

Jed from The Jed Report compiled this video - it’s good and should be spread around. Jed asks:

If Sarah Palin wasn’t a secessionist, then why was she palling around with them?

With poll numbers sliding, the McCain campaign has taken up a strategy of distraction. They want to stop discussing the economy and start hammering Obama on his loose ties to Bill Ayers and to his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

The McCain campaign has made a serious miscalculation in their strategy. They assumed that after the bailout bill passed last week, the markets would bounce back and confidence would be restored. Well, that hasn’t happened, and now their lack of economic focus makes them look out of touch and petty.

Obama’s camp hit back today, releasing this documentary film on John McCain’s involvement in the Keating Five. This is good political strategy, but don’t you all wish we could stick to the issues? As the global economy melts down, I’d rather hear solutions, not just attacks.

In one month from tomorrow, this will all be over. If you live in Virginia or Washington, D.C. - remember that today is the last day to register to vote!

If you’re not already a regular reader of Nate Silver’s election analysis over at FiveThirtyEight.com then you’re truly missing out. Silver is best known for creating the modern baseball statistic of PECOTA, a system for forecasting future player performance. This year he’s turned his talent towards electoral forecasting and today he’s got some analysis of the state of play in Georgia. He believes that Obama is already ahead in Georgia based on early voting.

Perhaps the only happy consequence of the segregation era is that a number of Southern states like Georgia are required by the Voting Rights Act to keep statistics on registration and turnout by the race of the voter. Those statistics suggest that black voter registration is up materially from 2004.

Here are the numbers. In November 2004, black voters represented 27.4 percent of Georgia’s active registered voter pool. As of October 1st, that figure has increased to 29.0 percent.

…

So suppose that by tonight, black voters have increased to 30 percent of Georgia’s registered voter pool. Plugging that 30 percent number in, McCain’s advantage is a mere 1 point.

Think these numbers sound unreasonable? Early voting is underway in Georgia, and according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, black voters do not represent 30 percent of Georgia’s early voter turnout. Instead, they represent almost 40 percent. Although early voting figures can be idiosyncratic, Barack Obama certainly seems to be having little trouble getting his vote out. Indeed, Barack Obama is winning Georgia right now.

After the debate ended last night, I got a couple emails and texts from friends and family who wanted to know what I thought about the show. Here are some of my musings on last nights debate.

Gov. Palin went into the debate with a pretty easy task - she couldn’t fall, she couldn’t have another deer-in-headlights moment, she couldn’t trip over words - she simply had to be Sarah Palin. To that end, she accomplished her singular goal. I don’t think she fell, she hit her basic talking points and she didn’t get lost in her words, like we saw in the network interviews.

However, she didn’t answer questions, she evaded policy issues, she brought everything back to the topics she wanted to discuss and personally, I found her folksy “Joe six-pack” lingo and overall presentation to be absolutely nauseating.

Seriously folks, we tried the slow-talking, colloquial, down home politician thing - his name was George W. Bush. How well did that work out?

Sarah Palin is out of her league, not because she is a woman, but because she’s not up to the task of running America. She regurgitated a stump speech last night and showed no mastery or command of issues. The mere thought of he serving as Vice President of the United States literally scares me. She’s not ready for prime time, she’s not ready to lead America.

For his part, Biden was good. I expected Biden to be good, he’s been at this for many years. He showed a command of policy, a leadership on important issues and even showed an emotional side when he spoke of his family and the loss of his first wife in a tragic car accident when he was 29 years old.

Last night’s debate didn’t move voters. It may have stopped the Palin slide that we’ve seen over the past couple weeks, but I don’t think anyone changed their mind based on the performance of either of these candidates. At the end of the day, I urge Americans to think past the novelty of Sarah Palin and remember that Bush is our living, breathing example that hiring someone into the executive merely on style is a mistake. Listen to what these people are saying, not just how they are saying it. This time around, I have confidence in the American people to do the right thing.

If you missed the debate, here’s the full broadcast courtesy of our friends at MSNBC.

Gov. Palin has been on the national stage for just about a months time. Is she ready to serve as Vice President, or even President, should something happen to 72 year old John McCain? Well, you decide.

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