Huff post  at 10 50``Romney 44%   Obama  34%

I'll add other votes as I get them

CNN  Obama 78; Romney 22

Huff post at 10 55    Obama 43
Romney 38

A couple of later results are below as comments since the system wasn't allowing me to post them as edits here.

Good night

Obama was leading Romney on Thursday

For the 7 days to Wednesday R had a 7 point average lead. So

R  7 times  53 =s                             371

O              46                                   322

Then for the 7 days to  Thursday R had a 6 point lead. That must mean that

R   6 days  times                      53

     + 1 day (thursday) times      X

      Total                                            367  an average of  52.5

O  6 days times                        46

Poll hosted  by

                               Obama              Romney

Fox News                  65                   35

CNN                          46                   39

CBS                           37                  30

Google                       48                   31

Gallup 10/17              65                  35

Flavius comment

For the second debate in a row the republican was caught lying. In Macy's window.

Tonight's embarrassment

was another win for Warren.

There's a full review over at TPM  but my overall assessment is that , again, she won.

Brown, as he had  before , attacked her  personally: on working for corporate clients and being too well paid by Harvard. Dunno how it worked for those watching at home. It was boo-ed in the hall.,

Which was my advice when the August employment numbers were released.

Same today.There are some days when something significant happens. Today like September 7th wasn't one of them. If either August or September had been up 300,000, that would have been significant. But not 100K and change.

Another non significant day was Debate Tuesday.Nothing happened then either.

From Brad Delong

I'm in it and am being surprised.

Surprise 1.I'm trapped.When I reached the bottom limit of the coverage gap as it is officially known I figured that as  one way of offsetting the escalation in copays I'd save the Medicare Plan D premium by  simply withdrawing  from the plan for the rest of the year.

Wrong,When you're in you're in . For the full year.

Surprise 2.Not all copays are created equal. When I prepared to pay  one of my newly escalated copays today the druggist said

o "you'll  be able to have these on Oct 10".

o Me " Need em now "

in her 2nd debate with Scott Brown.

I thought she won but of course my view has to be discounted for my partisanship. For me the two telling counts against Brown were his bullying of Warren " I'm not a student in your classroom" and his selection of Scalia as his favorite supreme court justice which countered his strongest sales point , his independent voting record.

Stood waiting for Sir Richard Strahan                                                                                                                    

 Sir Richard, longing to be at 'em     

Stood  waiting for the Earl of Chatham

An 18^th century verse on a battle which didn’t occur when it was supposed to as each  of the two British commanders waited for the other to make the first move.

Roy Jenkins quoted it to Prime Minister Callaghan in hopes of  persuading him  Britain should join the common currency.

Do you remember the 1984 movie The Verdict: Paul Newman, James Mason, Charlotte Rampling? Opens with Newman a down-at-the-heels Boston attorney, attending a wake in a funeral home, probably in Southie. He leans over to say a consoling word to the grieving widow. And presses his business card into her hand. In case she wants to sue someone. He's angrily ejected for this tasteless intrusion.

Breathe.

The only conclusion with respect to the election that we can draw from this report, is that there  are 95,000 fewer people who might be furious with Obama because they can't find a job for which they ,understandably,may blame him, .

If it had been a gain of , say,  150,000 sure that would have been better: there'd have been an additional 55,000 fewer people who might have ceased being furious.But 95,000 was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick as my old granny used to say.

Here's a message I received today  from a friend in England.

On the National Health,of course.

Meanwhile in the Senate Max Baucus had started an interminable process of attempting to obtain actual Republican input. This could have seemed to us here as a pure charade but the 6 Senators in Baucus's debating society had 30 ,2 hour meetings and the language in the emerging bill reflected input from the 3 Republican members and that convinced Lieberman and Ben Nelson to support that emerging bill.

remind me why I can't afford to have Obama lose.

Perhaps six months ago there was a typically bad tempered exchange here not directly about Obamacare but about the reviewer in the Nation who discussed Paul Starr's Remedy and Reaction

with the sub heading

The peculiar American Struggle over health care reform.

I threatened at the time that I would read it and give you the benefit  of my reaction and in response to a complete ,and understandable, absence of encouragement here it is

More years ago than most of you have been alive I attended Dan and Sydney's parties on Carver Street,behind the DivinitySchool.

When W was angsting over his stem cell decision  a few weeks before 9/11 he called on Dan for advice , Which Dan described  later on Margot Adler's "Justice Talking" program.

according to Martin Wolf.

In the Aug 18 FT.Where he encapsulates Plan Ryan this way

The Ryan plan is (an) example...of the Republican   policy (of) cutting taxes in order to increase deficits and so justify cuts in spending

Then goes on to do what any self-respecting economist could ,and ought to , do ;actually read  Ryan's plan and add up the numbers to see whether it does what Ryan claims.

It doesn't.

For the first time I think we've got a chance.

" We" being those of us who want to see Obama preside over the implementation of Obamacare. Could happen, now,

Until now I've felt our goose was Koched: the overwhelming financial advantage Romney will enjoy would be used to "Harry & Louise" or "Swiftboating" Obama..

US healthcare is no laughing matter

Excerpted from Gary Silverman, Financial Times July 27

Comedy can be dangerous work in the US. I was reminded of this.....when I chanced upon a website seeking donations for...Caleb Medley (a victim) of the shooting in Aurora, Colorado.

The website tells the story of an affable..dreamer who wound up living a nightmare...Medley grew up in a. ...small town called Florence, married his high school sweetheart and put down roots in Aurora so he could try....stand up comedy ...in.Denver.

" Dude I owe you  big time .Come over one day after work and I'm opening a bottle of  Bollingers " FT 6/ 28*

"I'm opening a Bollingers tonight" Flavius,right here

* as part of a massive fraud to rig the Libor  to Barclays' advantage

o just a month before the date scheduled for the Wisconsin governor's recall election , the democrats had a contested primary to chose their candidate.

o in a California district with a massive democratic majority the Congressperson will be a Republican since a multitude of democratic candidates so split the large democratic vote that the two winners were the (only) two Republicans who divided the much smaller Republican one.