While 2008 is guaranteed to be an election "like no other" in American politics for many other reasons, it will also be the first election where the voters themselves may wind up doing the best job of policing the election process itself. The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and YouTube have teamed up to offer a powerful tool to aid this effort: "Video Your Vote."

In a way, this was almost inevitable. The prevalence of cell phones capable of recording video has grown so fast in the past few years that this will be the first election where if anything hinkey does happen at the polls, there is an extremely good chance that someone watching will pull out a phone and record the video for the world to see. That's a powerful tool, indeed, and may combat fears from both Republicans and Democrats over voting irregularities on Election Day. At least somewhat.

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I started blogging over two years ago. That is to say, right about the time the 2008 presidential campaign began.

OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration. I actually started writing in order to have some tiny influence on the 2006 election, after I wrote the book "How Democrats Can Take Back Congress." But soon after the 2006 Democratic sweep of both houses of Congress, the presidential race began in earnest. Almost two years ago.

And now we find ourselves a few weeks out from Election Day, and things are looking pretty good for Democrats everywhere. It's been an exhausting campaign, and I don't think anyone can argue that the Grateful Dead lyric I used as this week's title is inaccurate. It has been a long and strange journey indeed.

Which brings up a point of sadness for left-leaning pundits everywhere to acknowledge. Since George W. Bush's approval rating is now lower than Nixon's, I feel it is appropriate to misquote Tricky Dick himself. Because, soon, we won't have George Bush to kick around any more.

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Was it just me, or did last night's presidential debate sound like some sort of surreal game of Clue? "It was Joe The Plumber... in the auditorium... with a lead pipe."

Ahem. Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest.

As usual, I don't really have much of an opinion about who "won" the debate last night, because I think such designations are inherently subjective. I can see both sides thinking their candidate "won" the night last night, in other words.

If you were a McCain supporter before the debate, you will likely still be supporting McCain and you will likely think your guy did a good job -- took the fight to Obama, strongly and forcefully made your points, and appeared more upbeat and emotional than during the first two debates. Your thoughts on Obama were likely to be that you felt he did a bad job -- long-winded, couldn't explain things McCain kept hitting him on, and grinning in a disrespectful way throughout the debate.

Likewise, if you were an Obama supporter before the debate, you will likely think your guy did a good job -- appearing calm and rational, answering the questions, refusing to point out what a ridiculous choice Sarah Palin was for a running mate, and addressing issues that average Americans care deeply about while rising above the nastiness of the campaign. Your thoughts on McCain were likely to be that you felt he did a bad job -- jerky, enraged, vicious little soundbites with no substance, demeaning to Obama with his grimaces and raised eyebrows and rolling eyeballs, and obviously clueless about what average Americans are going through.

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This week's word is going to be "insurmountable." Look for it coming from the lips and pens of pundits everywhere in the next week. Because while mainstream media journalists are obviously trying to portray this race as a lot closer than it really is (better ratings that way), if Obama can just hold on to the leads he has right now -- not improve them in any way, just hold them -- then Election Day viewing parties nationwide may be over before anyone's even finished their first beer.

Remember, the East Coast returns come in first. And it's going to be all but impossible to continue the "we're in a dead heat" nonsense if Barack Obama decisively wins Florida and Virginia.

Because, at that point, Senator Barack Obama will become "President-Elect" Barack Obama.

And, at this point, Obama winning Florida and Virginia looks like a definite possibility. Actually, you could add in Ohio and say "if Obama wins any two of these, he'll win." Or even, if you really trust all the other poll numbers, "if Obama wins any one of these, he's got it in the bag."

Which (as I pointed out) will lead to a very short Election Night.

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I've been saying for a while now that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki holds the upper hand in the game of "chicken" he's playing with George Bush over negotiating a Status Of Forces Agreement (SOFA) for American troops to legally stay in Iraq past the first of next year. Now it appears both sides are pretty close to admitting that there will be no agreement, and that they had better start talking about some sort of short-term arrangement, which would allow whoever America's next president is to take over the negotiating table.

Maliki, through all of this, has proved to be nobody's fool. He knows what is going on politically in America, and pretty much everything that has happened this year has strengthened his bargaining position. George Bush's approval ratings are now officially worse than Nixon's ever were. His disapproval rating is the highest ever recorded. And the U.S. election is three weeks away.

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The nomination of Sarah Palin for the Republican vice-presidential ticket has brought a lot of media attention to the Alaskan political scene. But while Palin's record and past deeds are being combed over by all and sundry, there are plenty of other scandals worth looking into up in the Last Frontier State. For instance, there is the case of Senator Ted Stevens. And I mean "case" quite literally, since Stevens is currently running for re-election -- while simultaneously defending himself against corruption charges in a federal court case. Whenever the verdict in the Stevens case comes in, it will doubtlessly cause another flurry of media attention northwards.

For those interested in the backstory of the octopus-like reach of the VECO corruption investigation, there is currently no better inside look at the entire mess than the amazing new book Last Bridge To Nowhere, by author Frank Prewitt. Prewitt has a unique perspective on the entire mess, since he was the F.B.I.'s "Confidential Source #1" throughout the evidence-gathering phase of the long-running investigation. Codenamed "Patient," Prewitt spent countless hours documenting sleazy deals, payoffs, bribes, and other shenanigans; often wearing a wire and taping encounters to provide court evidence.

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While we're all waiting for someone to leak the Palin Troopergate Report (which is reminiscent of waiting for "Fitzmas" during the whole Scooter Libby fiasco), let us take a brief look at the presidential race.

Things are getting pretty nasty out on the McCain campaign trail, it seems. Not much talk of "reaching across the aisle" these days. Now, while anyone with a halfway-decent brain saw this coming, this obviously doesn't include most of the mainstream media. Of course the end of the campaign was going to be nasty. Of course McCain and his minions were going to throw everything they could at Obama. Barack Obama himself knew this was coming. Democrats should have known it was coming. It's the old story of the scorpion and the frog -- McCain is getting nasty because he's a Republican candidate for president. "I'm a Republican, it's my nature," in other words.

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Two stories from the "power corrupts" department appeared this week, one on the state level and one on the federal level. Both just go to show, once again, that whenever sweeping surveillance powers are granted to those in authority the end result is almost always the same -- widespread abuse of such power to go after anyone the government takes a dislike to, rather than the "terrorists" who are the supposed targets of the law.

The first comes from the state of Maryland. It seems they decided that anyone voicing any opinion not in support of the government was a terrorist. From the Washington Post article (titled "Maryland Police Put Activists' Names On Terror Lists"):

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I have to admit, that's a pretty provocative title. And enumerating the poultry before they emerge from the ova is always risky... as the saying goes. But it's hard to look at this week's polls without the word "landslide" appearing in your forebrain.

Now, there is no hard-and-fast rule as to what constitutes an electoral "landslide." Some put the number of electoral votes (for the winner) as low as 300, others as high as 375 or even 400. I'm going to arbitrarily (for the purposes of this and future columns) peg an official "landslide" at 340. Mostly because at 340, the number for the loser slips below 200 -- a psychological barrier. Using 350 might be better, since that guarantees a spread of at least 150 between winner and loser, but I'm going to go with 340.

And right now, 340 or more looks like a serious possibility for Barack Obama on Election Day. There's just no getting around it when you look at the numbers.

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Tonight's loser in the debate was... the media spin.

Both candidates had the same pre-debate tactics, and both attempted exactly the same thing. They both tried to "psyche out" their opponent by warning how hard they were going to fight. It didn't work for either of them. Neither one of them really took the bait, and the entire debate was a snoozefest compared to what it was billed as.

But aside from that, the debate itself was notable only for how the candidates walked all over Tom Brokaw's flashing lights. They both realized early on that Brokaw was just not going to penalize either of them for going over their time limit, and so they basically ignored him for most of the debate. He even tried to plead at one point "Gentlemen, you may not have noticed, but we have flashing lights around here" (all quotes are taken not from transcripts, but from hastily-jotted notes, I should point out, all transcription errors are mine). Brokaw actually had the funniest line of the night as well, when the candidates went to shake hands with each other at the end of the debate, and Brokaw had to tell them to get out of the way of his TelePrompTer.

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