CNN Poll: Obama advantage grows  —  Likely voters nationwide:  —  Obama: 53 percent  —  McCain: 45 percent  —  NASHVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) - A new national poll suggests Barack Obama is widening his edge over John McCain in the race for the White House.

Who'll Call Obama A Terrorist?  —  Jonathan Martin notes: … The reality is that a member of McCain's audience went there today.  You can hear it clearly on this video clip taken from MSNBC— after McCain asks “Who is the real Barack Obama?” the first, loudest voice can be heard answering “Terrorist!”

Health Care Destruction  —  Sarah Palin ended her debate performance last Thursday with a slightly garbled quote from Ronald Reagan about how, if we aren't vigilant, we'll end up “telling our children and our children's children” about the days when America was free.  It was a revealing choice.

Engaging on Keating  —  I'd always thought McCain's great strength in defending the Keating affair was that he'd acknolwedged making a huge mistake, and spent his career repenting by recasting himself as a reformer.  —  So when his campaign puts his lawyer on the line with reporters to contest …

Embarracuda  —  I'm of two minds about how to deal with the McCain campaign's further descent into ugliness.  Their strategy is simple: you throw crap against a wall and then giggle as the media try to analyze the putresence in a way that conveys a sense of balance: “Well, it is bull-pucky …

U.S. Treasury's Kashkari to Lead Bank Bailout Office  —  Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Treasury will name Neel Kashkari, assistant secretary at the department, to run the $700 billion Wall Street rescue program on an interim basis, according to a Treasury official.

How did it all happen?  —  As I write this, the dow is down 430 points, below 10,000 for the first time in four years.  Tyler Cowen has published his list of what went wrong, with which I largely concur.  Another way to think about it is as a series of cognitive errors that afflicted everyone …

A CAMPAIGN JOHN MCCAIN WILL REGRET.  —  Elections have life cycles.  They have beginnings, middles, and ends.  The beginnings tend to be exciting.  The middles tend to be exhausting.  And the ends tend to be ugly.  The ends are ugly because the candidates are desperate and their teams are scared.

Videos: The Ayers connection; Update: Obama doesn't read newspapers?  —  This morning, we have a series of videos dealing with the intersection of William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, and the Obamas.  Sarah Palin's accusation that Barack Obama “palled around with terrorists” …

David Brooks Calls The Election For Barack Obama?  —  He did so at the Atlantic's relaunch brunch in New York this afternoon, according to Ad Age, which also posts a preview of the Atlantic's new cover.

Not Everyone Should Own a Home  —  Even without Fan and Fred, American mortgage rules are unusually lax.  —  Maybe only a friendly foreigner could say this.  But America needs to realize that not everyone can own a home.  The American Dream of home ownership for all is a fraud.