CBS Poll: Uncommitted Voters Say Obama Won Debate  —  UPDATED CBS News and Knowledge Networks have, once again, conducted a nationally representative poll of uncommitted voters to get their immediate reaction to tonight's presidential debate.  —  And this new poll has good news for the Democratic ticket …

Transcript of second McCain, Obama debate  —  NASHVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) — Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama debated in Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday night.  NBC's Tom Brokaw moderated the debate.  Here is a transcript of that debate.  —  Brokaw: Good evening from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Live-Blogging Nashville  —  10.33 pm.  This was, I think, a mauling: a devastating and possibly electorally fatal debate for McCain.  Even on Russia, he sounded a little out of it.  I've watched a lot of debates and participated in many.  I love debate and was trained as a boy in the British system to be a debater.

GOP likes ‘that one’ too  —  A Republican official emails, on background:

McCain wants to spend $300 billion to buy up bad mortgages; Martin Feldstein behind it  —  Scroll down for updates...McCain's April 15 remarks added below...Economist Martin Feldstein pitched the plan in the WSJ...see response below...  I can't underscore enough what a rotten idea John McCain's ACORN-like government mortgage buy-up is.

Signing Off  —  This reader out-Andies Andy: … Steady on.  This next month is going to be a long month.  Lots of things will happen.  But McCain has to make some of them happen.  His charge that Obama doesn't know the difference between “strategy” and “tactics” could equally well be leveled at his own campaign.

Lisa Guerrero: Time to end this monkey business?  —  All in all it's been a rough few days for the monkeys.  —  On Friday night, the Angels' Rally Monkey let down the home crowd in Anaheim.  Although the team triumphed Sunday night in Boston, you can't credit the monkey unless he sneaked into Jared Weaver's suitcase.

Britain Announces Huge Bank Bailout  —  LONDON — As European leaders continued to clash over measures to ease the financial crisis, Britain announced a three-part multibillion-dollar bailout for its beleaguered banks, and Spain moved to mount a separate rescue of its own banking sector.

McCaskill's edge  —  I mentioned a few days ago that Claire McCaskill's mild affect masks a bit of a killer, and perhaps the Obama campaign's deftest surrogate on the attack.  —  But I was still kind of amused by her brief interaction with Mitt Romney in the press file just now.

[I doubt that] Obama wore an earpiece that was clearly visible on HDTV.  —  (Enlarge.)  —  ADDED: Scrolling around and looking in different frames, I don't see it.  I think this picture creates an illusion of a clear plastic earpiece, but I can't see it in other frames.

Your Thoughts On That One.  —  That one, as in, the second debate.  What did you think I meant?  —  (BTW: McCain uses “that one” frequently in his stump speeches; the set-up is usually clearer, as McCain refers to Obama's being one of the senators who supported it, not McCain — as in …

Edited SNL subprime video also happens to excise Barney Frank's involvement  —  Not every comedy sketch on “Saturday Night Live” has to do with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.  —  It just seems that way recently, as The Ticket has reported here and here and here.  —  But there's an unusual twist this week over another SNL skit.

The Debate: Bad Feelings After the Snoozer in Nashville  —  I have a new story up on last night's debate in Nashville.  After it ended, there was serious unhappiness in some quarters of the McCain campaign — not with Barack Obama, but with NBC's Tom Brokaw.

AIG execs' retreat after bailout angers lawmakers  —  WASHINGTON - Days after it got a federal bailout, American International Group Inc. spent $440,000 on a posh California retreat for its executives, complete with spa treatments, banquets and golf outings, according to lawmakers investigating the company's meltdown.

If Social Security Was a Private Corporation Then it Would Sue Tom Brokaw for Every Penny He Has  —  If a news reporter deliberately makes a false statement claiming that a private company like Boeing or Microsoft is going broke, the company has the right to sue the reporter and the news agency.