Cheat Sheet

October may have passed without a surprise, but Election Day may have its own in store. On The Washington Post’s op-ed page, a bunch of political hands speculate what exactly it may be. Doug Schoen says keep your eye on Hispanic voters, a trouble group for Obama in the primaries whose support “is one of the major reasons Obama is poised to win states such as Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada and is even competitive in some polls in Arizona.” Ed Rollins says voters may punish Obama’s cockiness by voting for McCain. And Bob Shrum says the biggest surprise—and relief—will be the lack of drama. "The surprise is no surprise—no hanging chads, no reversal of the pre-election polls or the exit polls. Why?” he asks. “The presidential race isn’t close.”

Move over, Palin: Tina Fey has enough material. Now McCain is trying to get in on the act by taking time out of his hectic last weekend of campaigning in the swing states to appear on Saturday Night Live. He will appear alongside Ben Affleck, a devoted and humorless Obama supporter, and hopes to win some belated support among the younger, hipper, funnier crowd. An uphill struggle, you might think. But the last time he appeared he showed exemplary self-knowledge and humility, addressing his audience with, “I ask you, what should we be looking for in our next president? Certainly, someone who is very, very, very old.” Maybe he will have the last laugh after all.

In a move driven by the trifecta of politics, p.r. issues, and clear-eyed economics, JPMorgan Chase has announced what The Wall Street Journal calls “an ambitious plan.” The bank will “modify the terms of $70 billion in mortgages for borrowers who are behind on their payments or soon could be.” As many as 400,000 borrowers will benefit from a plan that will focus on the alluringly named “option ARMs.” Keep in mind that this isn’t purely eleemosynary; the bank doesn’t exactly want to become the sudden owner of 400,000 houses. Restructuring these mortgages and allowing people to stay in their houses gives JPMorgan Chase a fighting chance of getting some of its money back. The cynics at The Daily Beast wonder if this is also an insight into the bank’s grim view of the economy: If it thought the housing market was going to turn around fast, and these houses would be fungible in the foreseeable future, it might not have been so reluctant to kick people out.

Suddenly France has gone Obama crazy, Bloomberg reports. In Val de Reuil, in western France, the town has erected a 22-by-six-meter billboard with an image of Obama and his “Yes, We Can” slogan. Eight thousand French have joined the French Support Committee for Barack Obama. Thirty artists, inspired by the Democratic candidate, have contributed to an exhibit, “Barack Obama in Paris,”' with sculptures, paintings, sketches, T-shirts, books, pins, and posters. At Harry’s Bar they are serving cocktails named after the two candidates: McCain’s has fig liqueur, lemon juice and soda; Obama’s has cherry liqueur and grapefruit juice. Let’s hope not too many over here discover this unfortunate dimension of Obamamania. When John Kerry was labeled French, it doomed his bid for the White house.

Call it The Bonfire of the Vanities. The British appear to dislike Palin so much that America’s hockey mom-in-chief is to be burned in a 20-foot-high effigy tonight atop a bonfire on the site of the Battle of Hastings, the event that saw England’s King Harold shot dead with an arrow in the eye. The facsimile Palin, who has become an instant and recognizable figure of fun around the world, is dressed as Rambo brandishing an enormous machine gun and bedecked with bullets, all the better for shooting Alaskan wolves with, above a banner reading, “Too Hot to Handle.” Obama does not escape the attention of satirical fire raisers. He sits forlorn at Palin’s side, in a tin helmet only held up by his outsize ears.

Three days before Election Day, The Plank posits that Pennsylvania, where McCain “has targeted quite a lot of time and money,” will have no bearing on the national outcome. Even if Obama loses the Keystone State, Ohio, and Florida, he could still win if he carries the Western swing states plus Iowa and Virginia. The Democrat seems to agree that, as The Plank writes, he “can easily win the election without carrying Pennsylvania”—he has no further campaign stops planned there.

It has long been part of historical speculation that the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was not quite such a surprise to the Americans as thought at the time. It is not a respectable theory, but a common one. But there is no room for such speculation in Japan, where the chief of staff of Japan’s air force, General Toshio Tamogami, has been fired for writing an essay suggesting Japan had been ensnared in WWII and had not waged wars of aggression. Not that it was our sensibilities they were protecting. “The quick dismissal seemed intended to head off criticism from China, South Korea and other Asian nations that have reacted angrily to previous Japanese denials of its militarist past,” reports The New York Times.

Not a moment too soon, banks are reining in their lavish lifestyle to avoid offending their new bosses—the rest of us. And more modest catering for holiday parties is among the first sign the new austerity is beginning to bite. “Everyone is very conscious of the fact that while Rome is burning, we shouldn’t be having a great time,” Sean Driscoll, a partner in Glorious Food caterers, tells The New York Times. “Nobody’s ordering caviar as a first course.” Good to see that someone on Wall Street is making a sacrifice in these troubled times. Marie-Antoinette would have felt their pain.

Chicago’s greatest broadcaster and one of America’s most distinguished storytellers, the Pulitzer Prize winner Studs Terkel, has died. He had interviewed 9,000 people in a lifetime of hosting his own radio show, and was as at home talking to ordinary Chicagoans as he was to celebrities. He viewed each person as unique and fascinating. “The principle is that ordinary people have extraordinary thoughts — I’ve always believed that — and that ordinary people can speak poetically. Also that no one else speaks like that and that there is no other person like that in the world,” he explained. Unlike his contemporaries who went into television, Terkel shunned fame and wealth, content to live with his wife, Ida, in a mobile home on the Illinois border with Indiana. His left-wing views attracted the attention of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, a notoriety that ensured he remained working in radio rather than television. It was American radio’s gain, and television’s loss.

Those wacky contrarians at The Wall Street Journal have an odd view of democracy. Just because the Democrats may win on Tuesday will not give them a mandate to implement the policies Obama has fought on, they argue. What? “This election is not a mandate for Democratic policies. Rather, it is a wholesale rejection of the policies of George W. Bush,” they write. “The American people are actually seeking a middle route: consensus, conciliation and a results-oriented approach to governance. We need consensus.” Good of them to interpret our wishes. Call them old-fashioned, but those who vote Democrat may just expect some Democratic policies be implemented. And it is novel to hear the Journal’s brain’s trust suddenly shilling for consensus. Over the last eight years they didn’t spend much time arguing for a bipartisan approach to governing the nation. Back then it was full steam ahead with the neocon agenda. Perhaps time—and a new owner—has mellowed them.

Longtime editor Harold Evans finds little to praise in American press coverage of the election. “Forget the old notions of objectivity, fairness, thoroughness, and so on…the coverage has been slavishly on the side of ‘the one,’” he writes in The Guardian. We have been served a one-sided account, full of smears and innuendo, not only boosting Obama over McCain, but Obama over Hillary Clinton, thanks to “continuous insinuations below the radar that the Clintons were race-baiters. Instead of exposing that absurd defamation for what it was—a nasty smear—the media sedulously propagated it.” The result is a disservice to democracy. “All the mainstream national outlets were extraordinarily slow to check Obama’s background,” he writes, from Obama’s devotion to Jeremiah Wright to his friendship with Tony Rezko. “Let’s hope the consequences of electing ‘the one’ will be as wondrous as the press has led the voters to believe,” Sir Harry ruefully concludes.