Next up: Palin gets the boot.

You heard it here first... the next trick up the sleeve of John McCain will be to unofficially send Sarah Palin on the next flight back to Alaska. Of course, this would be under the pretext of Sarah 'deciding for herself' that family comes first, and that another choice for VP might be better suited to put 'country first'. With the economy crashing by the minute, the obvious choice would be Mitt Romney - someone with economic experience that would need little or no introduction on the national scene. It just might be crazy enough to work.

This has happened before, and with McCain's flair for the dramatic, I wouldn't put it past him. Even conservatives are starting to turn against Palin. The debate tomorrow vs. Biden should go a long way in deciding Palin's short term fate (and long term future as a national political figure). If the boot happens, the guys at fivethirtyeight.com seem to think it would mean surrender for McCain. But then again, you never know. Maybe this is the October surprise that brings the race back to a tie.

Polling-wise, the combination of the stock market crash (and how both candidates handled it) and the first presidential debate (the first introduction to the candidates for a lot of armchair voters) seemed to solidify support for Obama on the national level (the race has gone from basically a tie 10 days ago to Obama +5 today). Most importantly, a lot of swing states have recently also been strongly trending toward Obama - namely Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida (and to a lesser extent, Ohio, Indiana and Missouri). Assuming Iowa and New Mexico go to Obama - he needs to win only one of these 6 to win the election.