popular thinking

From many predictions, one. As stated previously here, it's all about the Electoral College and getting out the vote in enough states to win your candidate 270 votes in the EC. Looks as though Bush will try to get his majority by calling Kerry a liberal who "can run but cannot hide" (didn't he say that to Osama bin Laden?) while Kerry will try to earn his votes with the old Statue of Liberty Play: give him the poor, the women, the minorities and the huddled masses.

As for the final debate, it sounded to me like a replay of the second presidential debate, especially with Bush and Kerry echoing their pre-recorded messages from last week.

Full disclosure: With the debate happening in my neighborhood, I went down to ASU with a friend with the intention of watching from the Kerry camp (more for the Foo Fighters than for Kerry) but we were flummoxed by poor views and poorer organizational skills by whomever coordinated that viewing party. And, since we also wanted to watch the Red Sox-Yankees game, we tried to find a place on campus where we could watch both, while still getting some flavor from the live outdoor telecasts of MSNBC and CNN. Seemed to be easier for students to ask questions of Anderson Cooper than of Chris Matthews (who do we blame/credit for that?), but my friend was less interested in getting on the telly than was I, so alas, alack, you could only see us briefly in crowd shots. If you cared about that sort of thing. Always interesting to see what people will do (from silly signs to crazier costumes) to get the attention of the TV cameras, and how people will shout just about anything to get on camera.

For my part, my motto of the night managed to mesh Bush with Red Sox Nation (yes, strange bedfellows) following game two's loss (watched the game first, then the debate on replay). My motto, which almost made it on-air as part of my Red Sox Fans for Truth Campaign -- it's not a 527 but a 6-4-3 group -- is this: "Winning the war on the Evil Empire will not be easy. We need to be strong, we need to be resolute. It's hard work defeating the Yankees. But we cannot send mixed messages to our pitchers or our hitters. Did I mention we need to be strong and resolute. Stay the course, Red Sox Nation."