Oh yes - and that's all he had to do. Mr. Smoothie, Mr. Oleaginous, Mr. Cool. The razzle-dazzle guy right out of "Chicago" with his promises of anything and everything. The well-tailored callow fellow with practically no experience in areas that matter but with a very slick pitch. And certainly not in a league with the wizened, wise, and well sea-legged McCain. Obama is all high-sounding leftist theory. McCain has the tempered insight that only experience can instill.

Surprisingly, McCain had the better of Obama on the tailspinning financial markets. They and the economy generally are areas that rhetorically favor Obama, who relates oh-so-earnestly with testimonies about how capitalism has failed you and government is going to protect you, and do more for you, and regulate more on your behalf, and (for you) make federalized health care a constitutional right.

Is that wrong?

It's intellectual bilge water - consistent with leftist ideology though it may be. And in the current climate it flies very well, because people are hurting and worried. In such a climate, talk about personal responsibility and increasing governmental oversight (albeit by many of the same types of individuals who helped produce this mayhem) doesn't get you very far. So though McCain was - and is - largely right on economics and finance, and Obama wrong, it likely will win McCain very few votes.

And on foreign affairs, McCain played his usual strong hand - in response to which Obama did his usual rope-a-dope.

So are you saying it's over?

Not yet, but soon it may be - if the markets don't stabilize and if McCain can't pull some sort of rabbit out of the hat in the final debate next Wednesday. Politically, it's a scary prospect - with McCain-Palin, clearly the superior team of right reason and common sense, facing very long odds.

Scary?

Yes. Think about it. The Nos. 1 and 3 liberals in the Senate (Obama and Biden) becoming president and vice-president. And Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, who have reduced Congress' favorable rating to just 9 percent, standing Nos. 2 and 3 in presidential succession. Whacked-out lefties running both the executive and legislative branches of government, and packing the third branch - the federal judiciary - with their ideological own.

Compare that nightmarish prospect with the tough-minded, conservative, experience-based optimism of honest John McCain and Sarah Palin - and the outcome should be a no-brainer.