It probably goes without saying, but this is tremendously, tremendously sad to me. I’ve never been so humbled and excited to be in someone’s living room as I was when I sat with Studs for an interview last year. He died today at home, at 96.

Last night was a great night at the Lincoln Lodge. Thanks to the show and the audience for allowing a short-story writer to play with the funny people.

I’ve hit a wall with the election today, particularly over this Khalidi thing. Just fed up with the way anyone remotely associated with Barack Obama as being dangerous and evil. “Dangerous,” “evil,” “risky”: These words are meaningless in a post-Bush (and hopefully post-McCain) lexicon. But, I suspect the term neo-Nazi still actually means something.

So today I’m only going to post adorable election-related items, beginning with Yes We Carve, and, of course, “You Can Vote However You Like.” Happy Halloween.

Lots of talk about the new Obama ad, which is the first overt strike at Palin. Of course, I laughed when I saw it, and I think stylistically it’s very effective. But, I don’t know. I’ve enjoyed the high-road approach the campaign has taken with Palin. Let her dig her own holes without getting us dirty.

I struggled with whether to embed the video here, but decided not to. Instead, we’ll go with two videos that made me feel good this morning. The first is just about the greatest campaign coverage of the season. I love how seriously Biden takes it.

And then, my boy Leon Powe. Of course, the Celtics and Obama are inextricably linked for me, particularly Powe.

Just went to go early-vote, and the line was some 200-long. At 2:15 in the workday afternoon. Wow. I’d probably be better off on the fourth.

This afternoon, to be exact. I feel like voting early will alleviate some of my constant and persistent anxiety over this election (despite what various columnists have been saying, those poll numbers do not offer me any complacency).

I’m actually a little disappointed with how this is all wrapping up. I thought that the Ayers-Terrorist-Pal line of attack from McCain would eventually peter out once he realized that people actually wanted to talk about policy. And it did. Except now this socialism thing has taken off as the McCain stump speech, and it’s about as serious and right-minded as the Ayers meme. Is anyone really freaking out about socialism in 2008? If you were an independent voter, and you turned on two speeches, and one of them said, “Hope!” and the other said, “Dangerous socialist!” which would you side with? How could you take such a ridiculous battle cry seriously?

I remember back in early September, when McCain campaign manager Rick Davis declared that the election would not be about the issues. And, of course, everyone jeered. And, of course, the financial system imploded and it became very much about the issues. But now, just as I’m about to vote, I’m thinking that Davis was right. It’s difficult for me to separate McCain as a person from his policies. His rhetoric against “socialism” really boils down to rhetoric against actively addressing economic inequality in the country, and mocking that idea makes me think less of a person. Advocating a spending freeze on everything but defense and veteran affairs (even if he’s revealed the idea to be a joke) indicates to me a moral vacuity—I just don’t think you can be a good person and want to cut funding for early education for underprivileged kids. You can’t repeatedly call your opponent “dangerous” and “risky” and imply he wants to teach sex ed to kindergartners and be a good person. And you can’t run a campaign of fear. That seems obviously pernicious.

Last night, my mother and I were talking on the phone, when she told me that my Tennesseean second cousin was in town. “I didn’t even want to ask her how she was voting,” my mom said. But she offered up the info, anyhow. For the first time that we know of, she’s voting Democrat. She’s voting for Obama. What convinced her? Colin Powell’s endorsement. So today I went back and re-read the transcript of the endorsement, and was struck by how light on policy it was. Powell basically endorses Obama because of what sort of person he is:

“I also believe that on the Republican side over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party and Mr. McCain has become narrower and narrower. Mr. Obama, at the same time, has given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our people. He’s crossing lines–ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines. He’s thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values. And I’ve also been disappointed, frankly, by some of the approaches that Senator McCain has taken recently, or his campaign ads, on issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about. This Bill Ayers situation that’s been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign. But Mr. McCain says that he’s a washed-out terrorist. Well, then, why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have these robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that, because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow, Mr. Obama is tainted. What they’re trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that’s inappropriate.”

Today, the New York Times reports that Sarah Palin’s makeup artist is the top-compensated staffer on the McCain-Palin team right now. Amy Strozzi made $22,800 in the first two weeks of October, whereas top foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann made $12,500, and senior communications staff member Nicole Wallace made $12,000. All I have to say about this is that Palin’s makeup is good, and neither the McCain campaign’s foreign policy nor its communications have been that great, so I guess you get what you pay for.