Larvatus Prodeo

With Obama reaching new heights in the polls, Nate Silver more or less sums it up:

It’s fairly unusual for a candidate to have such a sustained run of momentum so deep into the campaign cycle. And it does appear to be real momentum, with some real feedback loops: the worse McCain’s poll numbers become, the more desperate his campaign looks, and the more desperate his campaign looks, the worse his poll numbers become.

McCain now has to go on a run of his own, a large enough run to wipe at least 8 points off of Obama’s lead, and perhaps more like 9 or 10 to cover his inferior position in the Electoral College and the votes that Obama is banking in early and absentee balloting. It is imperative that McCain does not just draw tomorrow night’s debate, does not just win a victory on points, but emerges with a resounding victory, the sort that leaves the spin room gasping for air.

There’s always the possibility that McCain might make the “one term” promise that’s supposed to have been tossed around in his campaign for a long time, as a final attempt at one of his crazybrave “game changers”, but with Palin now very much on the nose with independents and swing voters, that doesn’t look too clever. Meanwhile, Obama may have set a bit of a trap for Walnuts by claiming he’s too yella to raise William Ayers to his face. McCain says he’ll bring up Ayers. Given that most people think the Obama hangs with terrsts card is a big downer, except with the more rabid elements of the base and Fox News and the right wing bloggers, this may be a very bad move.

Update [by Mark] Liveblogging at FiveThirtyEight.com, Feministe, Feministing, Crooks & Liars, Think Progress and this girl called automatic win.