At this writing, The Economist's readers prefer Obama 8,146 to 3.

No, that's not a typo, it really is a ratio of 2700:1.

I should point out, The Economist is a conservative newspaper.

Of course, as McCain's supporters would be quick to point out, their readership is almost exclusively highly-educated, well-read, and wealthy, not the sorts of people you'd want to hunt moose with. Good thing they're not running the world or anything.

Let's review.

President Clinton, the "tax-and-spend" Democrat, left office with a $122 billion surplus.

President Bush, the "conservative" Republican, is on track to leave office with a $10,000 billion debt. I say $10,000 billion because "$10 trillion" seems smaller than "$10,000,000,000,000" but is in fact the same number.

Or put another way: Clinton, +$122,000,000,000; Bush, (-$10,000,000,000,000).

More personally: Clinton left every American with $428.07 in Government surplus; Bush will leave each of us $33,000 in debt[1].

Polls open in five weeks (and a few hours).

If you have a few extra bucks, you may want to donate to your party's congressional or senatorial committees, particularly if you're annoyed with today's vote. You can also harrangue your neighbors: check out FundRace to see who's giving what to whom.

I remember, back in the halcyon days of last week, when a certain (very) senior Senator from Arizona swooped in to save the bailout plan. Well, today, with 60% of Democrats voting for it and 67% of Republicans voting against it, I'd say he did everything he could.

But 778 points? Ouch. Good work, Johnny Boy.

In a moment of historic import in the Capitol and on Wall Street, the House of Representatives voted on Monday to reject a $700 billion rescue of the financial industry. The vote came in stunning defiance of President Bush and Congressional leaders of both parties, who said the bailout was needed to prevent a widespread financial collapse.

The vote against the measure was 228 to 205, with 133 Republicans joining 95 Democrats in opposition. The bill was backed by 140 Democrats and 65 Republicans.

Then Krugman: We are a banana republic with nukes:

So what we now have is non-functional government in the face of a major crisis, because Congress includes a quorum of crazies and nobody trusts the White House an inch.

Interesting times. Kind of like 1931.

Update (via James Fallows): The Obama-Biden campaign released a statement:

This is a moment of national crisis, and today’s inaction in Congress as well as the angry and hyper-partisan statement released by the McCain campaign are exactly why the American people are disgusted with Washington. Now is the time for Democrats and Republicans to join together and act in a way that prevents an economic catastrophe. Every American should be outraged that an era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and Washington has led us to this point, but now that we are here, the stability of our entire economy depends on us taking immediate action to ease this crisis.

The Cubs lost to Milwaukee today, giving Milwaukee the wild-card and the Cubs home-field advantage on Wednesday against the Dodgers. I'll miss a good hunk of the second game, as it's against the Vice-Presidential debate Thursday (unless they schedule a day game). I sincerely hope that the Dodgers play no better than they did all season (4 games above .500 at this writing; their final game is in progress), but of course the Cubs winning the division series at home on Tuesday wouldn't be too awful.

I won't be live-blogging the debate; but Josh Marshall is.

Economist Paul Krugman today chastises just about everyone involved in the bailout meltdown this week:

[T]he grown-up thing is to do something to rescue the financial system. The big question is, are there any grown-ups around — and will they be able to take charge?

...

[T]here do seem to be some adults in Congress, ready to do something to help us get through this crisis. But the adults are not yet in charge.

On a related note, I commend to everyone Frederick Allen's Only Yesterday, published in 1932. It's a quick read, and if you lived through the last 10 years, it will seem eerily familiar. (Someone at UVA has put the entire book online, as it may now be in the public domain.)

If John McCain doesn't have the courage to debate Barack Obama, how's he going to stand up to Putin? Or José Zapatero, for that matter?

I don't read Maureen Dowd much any more, but yesterday she gave her column to Aaron Sorkin. Not bad:

BARTLET: Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know ... I’m a little angry.

OBAMA: What would you do?

BARTLET: GET ANGRIER!

Good advice, too.

Happy autumn, y'all.