Before The Debate

Where things stand going in:

On the eve of the first Presidential Debate, Barack Obama is perhaps in as strong a position in the polls as he has been all year, now projecting to win the election 74.7 percent of the time. Both the state and the national polls that have come out within the past 48 hours have generally been quite favorable to Obama, and suggest that he may gained an additional point or so above and beyond his "Lehman Leap" from last week.

Which means Obama has to look presidential and make no obvious mistakes. I think all he needs at this point is to pass the commander-in-chief threshhold. Like Reagan had to in 1980. And then if it breaks, it probably breaks big - big enough, one hopes, to overcome the race-based five point margin that will always have to be subtracted from his total.