Sarah Palin’s good looks are all very well if you are single and your dating pool consists only of vice-presidential candidates. But for the rest of us the question we’d ask is less likely to be “are you lonesome tonight?” and more likely to be “what are you going to do about this flailing economy? Iraq? Pakistan? Afghanistan? The health system?”

Nobody had warned the Ohio crowd that John McCain had just morphed into a new persona — a raging populist demanding more regulation of the nation’s financial system. Unfortunately McCain’s willingness to make speeches that have nothing to do with his actual beliefs is not matched by an ability to give them.

In a reversal of position, a key Democratic lawmaker said Wednesday he may convene the committee that is conducting the investigation into whether Palin dismissed her public safety commissioner when he would not fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce with her sister. This may be the first move in a push to delay the probe.

No Democratic presidential candidate has won Virginia since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and the selection of Sarah Palin has improved Mr. McCain’s chances of carrying the state. Even so, Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, still clearly sees an opportunity here, and has opened more than 41 offices in the state.

Despite an intense effort to distance himself from the way his party has done business in Washington, Senator John McCain is seen by voters as far less likely to bring change to Washington than Senator Barack Obama. He is widely viewed as a “typical Republican” who would continue or expand President Bush’s policies.

The American economy is stressed to the breaking point by fundamental problems — in housing, finance, credit, employment, health care and the federal budget. And as a result, American workers have taken a beating. John McCain lavished praise on workers, but ignored their problems. That is the real insult.

Carly Fiorina, the woman John McCain sent out to defend Sarah Palin and rip anyone who calls her a tabula rasa on foreign policy and the economy, admitted Tuesday that Palin was not capable of running Hewlett-Packard. That’s pretty damning coming from Fiorina, who also was not capable of running Hewlett-Packard.

With economic conditions worsening over the course of this year and voter anxiety on the rise, Senator McCain has had to labor to get past the impression — fostered by his own admissions that the subject is not his strongest suit — that he lacks the experience and understanding to address the nation’s economic woes.

Senator Obama originally built his campaign on his opposition to the Iraq war, but his message has shifted to the economy. The question remains whether Mr. Obama can define his candidacy around the economy, as other Democrats have done, and be seen as connecting with the struggles of Americans.

Once a reliable Democratic voting bloc, Catholics have emerged as a pivotal swing vote in recent presidential races. Evenly divided in a poll over the summer, Catholics make up about a quarter of the national electorate and about a third in the pivotal battleground states of Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania.