BY MARC COOPER

Obama Up By 14 Points

I think this latest CBS/New York Times poll showing Obama leading nationally 53-39% is the political news headline of the week (along with nearly 90% of Americans believing the country is on the wrong track and Sarah Palin's favorability rating falling to a rather arctic 32%).

Got stuck in a big traffic jam Tuesday night thanks to the local wildfires and, therefore, got stuck listening to way too much CNN on the radio. I love how all the pundits are pretending, and that is the only appropriate word, that something really meaningful for John McCain can come out of Wednesday's final debate.

Please, make it all stop. I'm getting a headache. There's no exit for McCain except down the chute. What “he needs to do” in the final debate is produce quite literally some sort of miracle. One of the sort I cannot even imagine.

Fact is, that 25 years of failed conservative free market economics have come home to roost. Each day's financial news only further buried the GOP in its own muck. Who in their right mind can, at this late date, take seriously something called “John McCain's Economic Plan? [Insert laugh track here]. That is, unless one can imagine that after McCain catches Bin laden, and after he wraps our victory in Iraq (because he “knows how”) he will suddenly thrust his might chest against the collapsing global markets and stave off disaster.

That's it for now. I'm saving up my energy so I don't doze off during tonight's debate.

Read more from Cooper on the election at marccoper.com, including comments on Christopher Hitchens endorsement of Obama.

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