In tonight's debate, Chuck Todd of NBC News says, McCain needs to "figure out how to disqualify Barack Obama." Time Magazine's Mark Halperin writes, "McCain will have to produce a major memorable moment." The NY Daily News says the debate is "do-or-die for McCain's campaign." However they put it, people agree, John McCain needs a game-changer.

On the big issues, this debate is one last chance for John McCain to do what he has failed to do throughout this entire campaign: explain to the American people how his economic policies would be any different at all than the failed Bush agenda he has supported every step of the way. It's his last chance to somehow convince the American people that his erratic response to this economic crisis doesn't disqualify him from being President.

Just this weekend, John McCain vowed to "whip Obama's you-know-what" at the debate, and he's indicated that he'll use Bill Ayers to attack Barack Obama. Even though Senator McCain has said he doesn't "give a damn" about Bill Ayers, his campaign has admitted that if he talks about the economy, he'll lose.

Join us tonight at Roots Organic Brewing or the Clinton Street Theater (or, check out Blogtown's live-blogging extravaganza) to see how desperate McCain gets.

Last weekend, Colin Meloy headlined a show at the Doug Fir for Merkley. And on October 24, Al Gore's coming to Portland to stump for Merkley. Head here to get tickets to the Convention Center event.

Measure 64: Penalizes person, entity for using funds collected with "public resource" (defined) for "political purpose" (defined)

or

Measure 57: Increases sentences for drug trafficking, theft against elderly and specified repeat property and identity theft crimes; requires addiction treatment for certain offenders.

If you don't know yet, no worries. Tomorrow night, the Bus Project's Jefferson Smith and I are co-hosting an hour-long cram session on the ten most contentious measures. We'll be joined by special guests like Secretary of State Bill Bradbury and State Rep. Greg MacPherson as we dissect everything from the proposed top-two primary system to English language education (and we promise to make it interesting).

Here's the cool part: You can participate from anywhere, whether you're kicking back at home with a beer, or commuting home from work. As long as you've got a phone, you're in, and you can ask us questions about the measures. Hell, you can be in the bathtub while you listen in, for all we care (but please don't tell us this, if we bring you on the air to ask a question). Sign up at busproject.org/teleforum with your phone number, and we'll call you back at 6 pm tomorrow.

Sign up now, and we'll see you tomorrow night.

Fidel Castro says a "profound racism" in the United States will stop millions from voting for Barack Obama in next month's presidential election...
...Castro's written comments were published by state media Saturday. In them, he insists a "profound racism" exists in the U.S. and that millions of whites "cannot reconcile themselves to the idea that a black person ... could occupy the White House, which is called just that: white."

See it for yourself:

The Bus Project flipped the theory on its head, however, asking if older people should be able to vote. Check out their video response, featuring the Bus' Jefferson Smith with a fantastic Stossel-esque mustache, and man-on-the-street interviews with "experienced" voters in downtown Portland:

Marino's opponent, Larry Galizio, suggested we check out this website, too. "He's a phony," says Galizio.

Harsh words.

When talking about equity among neighborhoods, he discussed his own Cully neighborhood, which Lewis says does "not receive the same share of city resources."

For example, he pointed toward the forthcoming Cully Park: "This park is kind of a favorite of mine because it's built on a landfill. And they actually are planning to close it down three hours every day to let the methane off so it doesn't explode. And I think it's great to have a park, but it's not the same resources that people throughout the city of Portland have."

Whoa--a park that potentially explodes? I had to check into that.

Commissioner Dan Saltzman oversees parks, exploding and otherwise. His staffer, Matt Grumm, filled me in on Cully Park's gassiness via email:

It is on an old landfill and this limits what we can plant and build on the site. But I know of no requirement to close the site, and obviously the agencies that regulate and "permit" construction and uses (DEQ, BDS) would not allow us to build soccer and baseball fields (the most likely development on the site with those planting and building limits) if a chance of an explosion was real.

The Cully Park project website does reference methane gas, but says it will be managed with an "on-site pipe collection system" and burned off for three hours a day. The park won't close. Furthermore, Portland's Parks Bureau notes other parks and spaces built on landfills--like Bridgeport Village, and part of Seattle's Arboretum. Ritzy examples like those seem to shoot holes in Lewis' "not the same resources" argument.

More info from the park's website after the cut!

Merkley, in fact, was in the Mercury's office this afternoon. Our endorsements aren't out until next week, but I can tell you this: He's a different candidate than he was during the primary, when Steve Novick was dogging him at every turn. In that interview, Merkley was wooden and unengaging. Not so today: With Smith his clear target, Merkley was sharp, explaining the issues in easy-to-relate-to terms. He was even funny, cracking a few well-placed jokes.

In tonight's debate, Merkley started off stiff, even in the way he gestured with his arms (he kinda looked like a robot). By the time Smith was defending his vote for last week's bailout--and insinuating that Merkley's opposition to the bill was a vote against rural Oregonians and their beloved timber payments--Merkley warmed up. "The meltdown on Wall Street is the natural consequence of Gordon Smith and George Bush's policy of deregulation, of taking away ordinary protections for our mortgages, for our families, and a deregulation of Wall Street, saying let's let the big banker boys do what they want at the expense of our families. It is outrageous."

He continued: "And the bill that Gordon Smith supported last week, it is a blank check. It doesn't address the core issues, it doesn't provide oversight of Wall Street... and because it doesn't address the core issues, it doesn't send a voice of confidence to the world that we're ready to take on these issues. I'm ready to take on these issues."

Smith, meanwhile, had the sort of blustery attitude McCain displayed during Tuesday's debate. While Smith didn't say "my friends" ad nauseum, he came across as the cornered, at-fault, out of touch Republican, the guy who's saddled with the weight of all that's gone wrong with the country in recent years, months, and weeks, and doesn't have a good explanation.

More after the cut.

"But despite all of this, I ask of you what's been asked of the American people in times of trial and turmoil throughout our history. I ask you to believe. Believe in yourselves, believe in each other, believe in the future we can build together."

I can't help feeling reassured by this kind of rhetoric. And increasingly, I see the stage being set for an absolute slaughter of the Republicans on election day.

It's too bad the crowd is thin: I got a sneak peak at the questions, and they're meaty, dealing with issues of race, socioeconomic class, affordable housing, and employment. You know, the sort of things that Portlanders say they care about.

Sho Dozono asks the first question, about the city's day laborer center. Check after the cut for the answers to that and more.

"John McCain was all over the map on the issues, and he is so angry about the state of his campaign that he referred to Barack Obama as 'that one' - last time he couldn't look at Senator Obama, this time he couldn't say his name. The McCain campaign said, 'if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose,' and John McCain definitely lost tonight," said Obama-Biden campaign manager David Plouffe.

(Confidential to those who tried to join us last week, but got the "this blog is at capacity" note: Please know that CoveritLive claims to have significantly increased their capacity for tomorrow night, and has assured livebloggers there won't be problems.)

But it turns out, there are still those who won't vote for Obama because he's black. And I watched a clip this morning that I thought might be good for us bubble-stuck Portlanders in terms of getting some perspective on this aspect of the, er, race.

Back in July, Richard Trumka, secretary treasurer of the AFL CIO, a voluntary federation of 56 national labor unions, representing 10.5 million working Americans, addressed the issue at a United Steelworkers conference—you can head over to Youtube to watch the clip. Trumka, who's from Buttballs, Pennsylvania, (I couldn't catch the town's real name...but it's a dying town with no jobs, being left by all its young people...) recounted a conversation he'd had there with a voter about the Democratic primary.

"I'm voting for Hillary, there's no way I'd vote for Obama, he's muslim, and he doesn't wear the American flag," said the woman, according to Trumka. He pushed her, and she ultimately admitted she just didn't trust Obama, "because he's black."

In his speech, Trumka argues that "we can't tapdance around the fact" that women like the voter he talked to exist. "We can't afford to sit silently or look the other way while it's happening," he says.

But what do we do, here in Portland? It's probably best to sit tight. There's certainly a danger that by engaging on the race issue, we're seen as urban liberal elitists by the people we want least to alienate, over there in Pennsylvania. Or, now the primary's passed, in Ohio. Or even Florida. I'm reminded of the 2004 election, when readers of the UK Guardian wrote letters to soccer moms in Ohio telling them why the Jews urban liberal elite mainstream media controllers simply couldn't tolerate another term of Bush. The result? Obvious...

Trumka does a good job of rallying the base, I think, without alienating the racists. But it's such a tricky line he's walking. And I think it accounts for why nobody here in bubble town, or anywhere else on the coasts of this fine country, is chomping at the bit to discuss backwoods racism, or frontwoods racism, or racism of any kind, when it comes to this election. It's just not worth our while.

Priceless. You couldn't make it up. I can imagine them frantically calling around asking people, "would it be accurate to say that it was her evening? hmmmm? that she killed? hmmmm? that she was a star? hmmmm?" and just waiting for them to say "well I guess so." Now, to find a republican famous person...that's the next task.

via BuzzFeed