30 Minutes Before the Debate

(This post was begun at 8:32 PM Eastern Daylight Time, and completed at 8:58 PM EDT; the time in which it was uploaded is listed below)

“When I was walking in Memphis
Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel?”
-Marc Cohn

After two blasé wins for the Democrats in the debates of Mississippi and Missouri, we have reached the closest thing to the People’s Debate: the “town-hall” debate, from the Curb Events Center at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. The debate, moderated by retired NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw (still a Special Correspondent, and interim Meet the Press anchor, for NBC), will feature questions not only from the moderator, but also from the audience, and even from the Internet. Here are some pre-debate observations and things you should look at for tonight’s debate:

>McCain has the upper hand (or does he?): The McCain campaign has stated in the past that a town-hall format is his specialty, and asked the Commission on Presidential Debates for 10 town-hall debates. However, McCain has made some of his biggest gaffes at town-hall events, including his infamous “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran” song, appropriated from the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann”, and his statement when asked if we would stay in Iraq for 40 years, “Why not a hundred?”

>McCain is on his last legs: You can see the way McCain’s wheels are coming off from the current campaign language. For the first time this campaign, McCain is directly attacking Sen. Barack Obama’s merit, with Gov. Sarah Palin going after Obama for his relationship on a charity board with William Ayers, leader of 1960s radical organization Weather Underground-even though in The Audacity of Hope, Obama’s second book, he had expressed that Ayers was, essentially, a nut. Will McCain himself follow the line of desperate mudslinging this evening in Memphis? And will Obama respond with his own mudslinging, most likely on the subject of Sen. McCain’s involvement in the Keating Five scandal?

>This may be McCain’s last shot: With only one debate remaining (and the topic being domestic policy, an Obama stronghold), Sen. McCain may have his one final shot to break Obama’s momentum; while a win can turn the tide and bring him surging back in the polls, a loss may clinch a win for Obama as the number of swing states shrinks; Obama now leads 349-174, with the state of North Carolina still tied, on Electoral-Vote, winning in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Colorado, Nevada and Virginia (McCain’s got Indiana and West Virginia, but is even slipping in Montana, Mississippi, and Georgia [the latter two have fierce Senate races going on]), while FiveThirtyEight has Obama winning 345.4-192.6, with an 89.2% probability of victory.

Tonight’s debate, from Memphis, Tennessee, begins at 9:00 PM. Expect a post-debate report, with reactions and polls from the Network 3, the Cable 3, and more circa midnight.