Just did BBC Radio 4, providing my brief thoughts on the debates. The Republican participant (didn’t catch her last name very clearly, but her first name was “Jennifer,” which created the brief fear that I was on with Ms. Rubin!) claimed that Mitt’s making gains with the Latino vote, which was news to me.
In any event, as I indicated yesterday, I’ll be live-blogging the debate tonight (will probably resume the keyboard at about 8:30 PM EDT), and thus will follow the schedule we used during the conventions: an early suspension of blogging, followed by a hiatus, and then resumption of blogging until everything’s said about the debate that needs to be said.
In the mean-time, here are some mid-day nuggets:
* Monthly alum James Fallows offers the best pre-debate analysis of the two candidates’ strengths and weaknesses.
* Romney “deduction cap” suggestion helps his case a lot, but leaves a lot of politically sensitive questions unanswered. Also doesn’t deal with unpopularity of high-end tax cuts to begin with.
* In case you missed it, new NBC/WSJ polls of likely voters showed Obama up by 8 in Ohio, 2 in Virginia, and 1 in Florida. And yes, First Read uses “statistical tie” to describe VA and FL.
* New PPP poll shows both Romney and Claire McCaskill up by 6 in MO.
* Depressing Martin Wolf column at FT on theory that economic growth and productivity gains a thing of the past.
And in non-political news:
* Oregon brewery offers beer made with yeast from brewmaster’s beard. No thanks.
Back after a brief break.
