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What a letdown after Sarah Palin's sparkling debate performance.

Awful fake "town hall" format with questions actually selected and mostly asked by Tom Brokaw...far too many silly questions...Senator Obama did not show himself in the best light when he kept insisting on breaking the time rules...Senator McCain made some good points but was not as articulate or forceful as I would have liked. And a couple of his answers truly pained this conservative, but given the alternative voting choice, what can you do?

After a slow start, I felt McCain did the best, but I think the first debate was better.

Beldar, posting at Hugh Hewitt's blog, gave McCain's debate performance a big thumbs up.

It's worth noting that Senator Obama has closed each debate by tearing down and criticizing our country, while Senator McCain has appealed to our better instincts and with great love for our nation.

With a month to go, I think the election is still a lot more fluid than the TV pundits would have us believe. Just two weeks ago the race was looking quite different, and we have twice that much time still going into the election. A few polls, such as this one, show the race tightening up again and McCain drawing closer to Obama. Given that Senator Obama consistently underperformed relative to polls in the primaries, I think Republicans have reason to hope this will again be the case next month.

Republican political elder Obi-Wan Kenobi has checked in with Jim Geraghty at The Campaign Spot after a long absence, and he is also optimistic about McCain's chances.

Then if McCain's elected, we just have to manage to stop the insanity of the government buying homes and resetting mortgage terms. But that's an argument for another day. If Obama's elected we're looking at even worse...

Wednesday Update: The subtle bias in the questions selected by Brokaw aided Obama. No gun control, abortion, or judicial nomination questions, for starters.

The Hotline poll suddenly has McCain within 1 point, a 4-point change since the weekend.