Jack Tracker has the debate talking points from the Obama camp early:

“* This is John McCain’s last chance to turn this race around and somehow convince the American people that his erratic response to this economic crisis doesn’t disqualify him from being President.

“* Just this weekend the weekend, John McCain vowed to ‘whip Obama’s you-know-what’ at the debate, and he’s indicated that he’ll be bringing up Bill Ayers to try to distract voters.

“* So we know that Senator McCain will come ready to attack Barack Obama and bring his dishonorable campaign tactics to the debate stage.

“Obama continues to lead on the economic crisis with a rescue plan for Main Street.

“Over the course of the campaign, Barack Obama has laid out a set of policies that will grow our middle class and strengthen our economy.

“But he knows we face an immediate economic emergency that requires urgent action – on top of the plans he’s already laid out – to help workers and families and communities struggling right now.

“That’s why Barack Obama is introducing a comprehensive four-part Rescue Plan for the Middle Class – to immediately to stabilize our financial system, provide relief to families and communities, and help struggling homeowners.

“This is a plan that can and should be implemented immediately.

“Obama has shown steady leadership during this crisis and offered concrete solutions to move the country forward – and his Rescue Plan for the Middle Class builds on the plans to strengthen the economy and rebuild the middle class that he’s laid out over the course of this campaign.

“Already in this campaign, he’s unveiled plans to give 95 percent of workers and their families a tax cut, eliminate income taxes for seniors making under $50,000, bring down the cost of health care for families and businesses; and create millions of new jobs by investing in the renewable energy sources.

“John McCain has been erratic and unsteady since this crisis began – staggering from position to position and trying to change the subject away from the economy by launching false character attacks.”

With pdf goodness of the registration stamped with the ACORN logo.

Meanwhile Ohio finds multiple reports of teenagers being offered smokes dollar bills and other incentives to register multiple times.

Obama is distancing himself from the group he once trained.

From the Associated Press. Can I just ask, why in a Democracy is voting such a difficult process?

This time from Missouri & Ohio. Investigators already raided an office in Las Vegas.

ALSO: Indiana & Connecticut.

The following quote discribes the changes in housing as a response to events in the 1930’s as part of the Great Depression:

In response to these calamities, the federal government began intervening in the housing finance market. It created three particularly important institutions: the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA)… The HOLC changed the terms of the mortgages drastically, converting variable-rate, short-term, nonamortizing mortgages into fixed-rate, long-term (20-year) fully amortizing mortgages. (An “amortizing” mortgage is one where the principal is repaid over the life of the loan, so that the borrower does not face a large lump-sum payment at the end of the loan.) The HOLC ultimately purchased, reinstated and converted one million mortgages.

“Because the federal government did not see itself as being in the business of holding mortgages in the long term, it needed to find a way to make these mortgages marketable. In particular, investors in the mortgages wanted assurance that they would receive the full principal balance and scheduled interest payments. While some private mortgage insurance companies were in business for this purpose before the 1930s, they were insufficiently capitalized and failed in the early 1930s. Consequently, the government established the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to provide the mortgage insurance necessary for investors to purchase mortgages with confidence.’”

“Thus, the invention of the fixed-rate, self-amortizing, long-term mortgage was, above all else, a response to a general financial crisis, as opposed to a design for the promotion of homeownership per se. FHA adopted this form of mortgage to avoid the problem of people needing to refinance, which had clearly led to disaster. The combination of HOLC and the FHA represented a piece of early “financial engineering” that allowed illiquid financial institutions to become liquid again. The new long-term mortgage was of course no panacea for U.S. banking problems one-third of U.S. banks failed during the Great Depression (Friedman and Schwartz, 1963)-but it helped.”

Richard K. Green and Susan M. Wachter The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Autumn, 2005), pp. 93-114 Published by: American Economic Association

See Previous Quote: Fannie & Freddie’s anomalous legal status

From the Associated Press:

Federal officials say that 20-year-old David Kernell of Knoxville, Tenn., was indicted by a federal grand jury in Knoxville for intentionally accessing without authorization the e-mail account of Palin, Alaska’s governor.

Kernell has turned himself in to authorities and is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday before a magistrate.

Kernell faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised release.

David is the son of Mike Kernell a Democratic Tennessee state Representative. Read more about him and his earlier admittal to the crime here.

I said the other day that both candidates needed to come to the debate with clear answers on the economic crisis and new policy ideas. Well, so much for that.

McCain did propose a new $300 Billion plan for the government to assist homeowners but did a terrible job of explaining or selling it and did not refer back to it often enough for most people to notice. Plus its kind of hard to sell yourself as a reformer who will cut spending when you keep proposing new spending. The same also applies for Obama. When people ask you what programs you will cut and you suggest programs you will spend more money on, then follow it up with “some existing programs may need tighter budgets EXCEPT… you aren’t actually suggesting any budget cuts.

My sense of the debate is that many tuned in, not many stayed the entire length.

Despite the sudden rush of polls, my sense is that we are actually somewhat tied 27 days out. Some of the national polls will tighten now that conservatives are moving back into attack mode and the right is revving up their base with thoughts of what will happen if an unchecked Democratic Party comes to power. Likewise the MSM, which adopted the Democratic theme that this was deregulation gone amok, have begun reporting on the lengthy involvement of Barney Frank and the Democrats in this crisis. As that happens and the reality that the US was failed on all sides sinks in, I wouldn’t be surprised if things tighten up. Not because of renewed interest in McCain but something else.

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Something tells me 1988 Sarah Palin probably would have been REALLY upset. 2008 Sarah Palin? Probably not so much!

Story from Entertainment Wise.

Says Obama is ready if McCain decides to “Take the gloves off.”

From the AP:

Nevada state authorities are raiding the Las Vegas headquarters of an organization that works to get low-income people to vote.

A Nevada secretary of state’s office spokesman said Tuesday that investigators are looking for evidence of voter fraud at the office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also called ACORN.

No one was at the ACORN office when state agents arrived with a search warrant and began carting records and documents away.

Secretary of State spokesman Bob Walsh says ACORN is accused of submitting multiple voter registrations with false and duplicate names.

The raid comes two months after state and federal authorities formed a task force to pursue election-fraud allegations in Nevada.

ACORN or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has been linked to voter fraud before and received attention recently when Sen. Lindsay Graham noted during the bailout negotiations that the group was going to receive money as part of the bailout bill.