But beyond this, there is troubling news over at The National Review.

As I noted here earlier this year, Christopher Buckley, son of the magazine’s founder, William F. Buckley, endorsed Barack Obama for president, and was quickly shown the door. Today, The New York Times reports that David Frum, a prominent conservative writer, is leaving to launch a Web venture. Over at The Corner, the National Review’s influential blog, you can read comments by a few of the magazine’s contributors.

Yes, like all people, magazine writers move around. But Frum isn’t just any magazine writer, and NR isn’t just any magazine. Or maybe it is now that Mr. Buckley is gone. It’s hard to imagine Mr. Buckley fawning over Palin the way many of the editors and writers there did (one of Frum’s concerns was with the backlash he received after writing negatively about her), but we’ll never know.

But I cannot be unfair to the magazine. After all, I’m hardly a regular reader. I pay attention to Frum and Jonah Goldberg and Rich Lowry and Charles Krauthammer because they’re smart guys even if we disagree consistently (as an aside, Krauthammer wrote this piercing editorial about John Edwards, and I agreed with every word of it.) Peggy Noonan and David Brooks don’t write for NR, but I rarely miss a word (they were both critics of Mrs. Palin; Mr. Brooks described her as “cancer to the Republican Party.”)

In late October, E.J. Dionne, writing in The New Republic, observed, “The cause of Edmund Burke, Leo Strauss, Robert Nisbet and William F. Buckley Jr. is now in the hands of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity–and Sarah Palin. Reason has been overwhelmed by propaganda, ideas by slogans, learned manifestoes by direct-mail hit pieces.”

Like everywhere else in life, it’s easy to pile on the defeated in politics. Aside from the score-keeping, one thing the GOP has always been good at is idea generation. After all, that’s the primary reason Buckley founded NR, and it served as adequate justification for rarely turning a profit.

Which brings me to a larger question. In the Times‘ article Mr. Frum notes, “I am really and truly frightened by the collapse of support for the Republican Party by the young and the educated.” I’ve been pondering this for past few weeks. Exit polling demonstrates that young people and the well-educated voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama. For the first time in eight years, the Democratic Party proved to be the party of ideas.

President George W. Bush will leave office with the lowest approval rating in history, and the comparisons to Herbert Hoover are becoming more accurate as this troubled economy sinks further towards a depression. Barring a Clinton-esque transition gaffe(s), president-elect Obama will enter The White House with approval ratings nearing seventy percent, and substantial majorities in both houses of Congress.

If Mr. Dionne is right, and the GOP think tank is being led by propoganda mongers Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Mrs. Palin, I am saddened. That may sound strange coming from me (after all, it’s about winning, isn’t it?), but let’s be honest. With our economic future in jeopardy; two concurrent wars being fought thousands of miles away; and an energy crisis like nothing we’ve ever seen, it’s time to populate the marketplace with ideas.

But the GOP is polarized. Former presidential candidates are taking swipes at each other, and no one, not even NR, seems to know which way is up. As good as it has proven to be for Democrats in the short-term, how will Americans fare in the long term?

The Post goes on to note that there is a “striking level of comity” between the Bush and Obama teams.  Bush and Obama meet tomorrow at The White House.

I told him that while I wanted McCain’s spokesperson Nicole Wallace to call me, she hadn’t and I couldn’t give him an actualanswer. But I was happy to guess. I suggested that this was the line the McCain campaign had to take, regardless of the polls. After all, McCain made a seriously blunder when he (a) failed to present himself as a true maverick: someone who would fight for ordinary Americans and work across party lines and (b) opted not to distance himself substantially from George W. Bush. It made his narrative far more difficult to communicate. Thus, he had to change it in the final week to have any chance.

But I also said that the McCain campaign may also be telling a bit of truth. Polls do appear to be tightening in the states McCain has to win. Polls released today show Obama up 4 in Pennsylvania, 1 in Indiana, 4 in Ohio, and 4 in Florida. If I’m McCain - and considering where his campaign has been - I’m pretty fired up about those numbers.

Also I said that there were a few additional factors that the McCain camp knows could help them. First, the youth vote won’t show up. Traditionally, they don’t.

Second, older white voters rally to McCain. Among white voters, McCain leads Obama 51% - 44%. Among older voters, Obama maintains a narrow lead 48% - 46%.

Third, McCain’s socialism attack is resonating. McCain launched this attack late, which means that there won’t be any reliable public polling data available to know whether it’s working. We also have to assume that there are more persuadable voters than many of the polls indicate.

Fourth, the surge in early voting won’t translate to substantial turnout on election day. I examined this in an earlier post, but if the people voting early are people that would vote anyway and few new voters show up, it could harm Obama in swing states.

Fifth, Obama’s GOTV operation isn’t as good as expected. It’s long been believed that Obama campaign has put in place a plan (rumored to have 200,000 volunteers in Florida alone) that is far more sophisticated than the Bush-Rove plan in 2004.

Honestly, each of these seem like a longshot. But as I’ve argued many times, strange things happen on election day. The next five days are going to be very interesting.

For more on this see John Dickerson’s piece in Slate and compare Zorn, E., “8 Reasons Obama Will Win.”

The piece will also focus on the medical records released by Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The McCain campaign has refused to released any medical records of Sarah Palin, interestingly.

UPDATE: Here’s the story.

Overall, I thought it was another debate that proved both candidates competent on the issues. The polls show John McCain well behind Barack Obama, so he had to do something to show that Obama isn’t ready to be President. He didn’t. Plus, McCain told really bad jokes. He also didn’t employ any of the attacks his campaign used this week. To a friend, I suggested that the O/U on Bill Ayers would be 6. He was never mentioned. Overall: Advantage: Obama.

On MSNBC, the Pennsylvania focus group scored it 60% - 40% for Obama.

New York Times super-blogger Katherine Q. Seelye has her live-blog here.

Mike Murphy says McCain did a better job connecting to the middle class tonight, but that he’s not sure whether it was enough.

Michael Grunwald, Jim Poniewozik, and Karen Tumulty of TIME have their live-blog here.

Chris Matthews: “Not a game-changer tonight.”

Keith Olbermann is wondering why McCain called Obama “that one”? I asked the same thing on Twitter. So did Slate, among others.

Mark Halperin gives Obama a B+ and McCain a B.

Howard Fineman: John McCain never mentioned Sarah Palin’s name. This means they’re operating on a number of levels. 1) A campaign on the economic issues; 2) The campaign going on outside . . . that is very tough and very nasty.

UPDATE: CBS News Poll: 39% for Obama; 35% Draw; 26% for McCain.

UPDATE II: Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic: “This was, I think, a mauling: a devastating and possibly electorally fatal debate for McCain.”

UPDATE III: For Arkies: NLR mayoral candidate Bubba Lloyd is running television ads on MSNBC after the debate.

UPDATE IV: From CNN: 54% for Obama; 38% for McCain. CNN analysts score it for Obama.

UPDATE V: Jonathan Martin of Politico follows the use of “my friends” by McCain. He also notes that the McCain campaign was pissy about the format. Ben Smith notes that McCain didn’t take Obama’s offer to shake hands after the debate. Martin and Mike Allen were in Little Rock last week to speak at the Clinton School of Public Service. Very sharp guys. The blogs, along with Allen’s Playbook, are required daily reading. Tim Griffin’s musings about their visit here.

UPDATE VII: Michael Scherer of TIME weighs in at Swampland. He also notices McCain dissing Obama there at the end.

UPDATE VIII: Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: “A real moment in the debate was Obama talking about healthcare.”

UPDATE IX: Frank Luntz’s group over at FOX News scores it for Obama based primarily on healthcare.

UPDATE X:  Pat Buchanan: “The events are breaking so huge” against McCain.

• If the election was held today, Barack Obama would win and he would win convincingly.  Based on the latest polls, it is very difficult to conceive a scenario (barring unforseen outside circumstates) where Obama loses this election.
• John McCain’s decision to drop out of Michigan was a clear sign that this election is slipping away. Three weeks ago Michigan appeared to be within McCain’s reach.  Also, new polls shows McCain also trailing Obama by double digits in Minnesota, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, three more blue states where McCain thought he had a chance to win.
• The electoral map is much smaller for McCain.  He’s going to have to reverse the course in one of the states that I’ve included as “looking very good for Obama” in order for him to have any chance of winning this election.  Simply winning the remaining toss-up states (which looks more and more unlikely) won’t be enough to get to 270.

States solidly for Obama: CA, CT, DE, DC, HI, IA, IL, ME, MD, MA, NJ, NY, OR, RI, VT, WA (197 electoral votes).

New editions: None

States solidly for McCain: AK, AL, AZ, AR, GA, ID, KS, KY, LA, MS, MT, ND, NE, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, WV, WY (163 electoral votes)

New editions: None

States looking very good for Obama: CO, MI, MN, NH, NM, PA, WI (76 electoral votes)

States looking very good for McCain: None

Total electoral votes for Obama: 273

Total electoral votes for McCain: 163

Toss-ups: FL, IN, OH, MO, NC, NV, VA, (102 electoral votes)

New editions to toss-ups: None

States moving off the toss-up list this week: MN, NH, PA

According to the latest polls Obama leads in: FL (+3), OH (+7), MO (+1), NC (+3), NV (+4), VA (+9)

Obama’s total: 364

According to the latest polls McCain leads in: IN (+1)

McCain’s total: 174

I’ll get into the electoral math tomorrow morning with a new edition of The Electoral Update.