Keep Your Shirt On.

Josh Marshall (via Stephen Bainbridge):

The TPM email bag this morning is chock of emails saying, in so many words, is it time to panic? I’m actually not taking much summary license here. Most of the emails I’m talking about actually ends with some form of that sentence.

He means, is McCain suddenly going to win because of l’affaire Palin? In a word, no. For sure, Obama needs to get out in front of things. But he has before, and probably will again. The fundamentals – that even McCain needs to run against Bush to get a majority – haven’t changed, though the Palin pick has usefully reminded the country what “liberalism” is really all about these days. That might be the difference between a landslide and a simple majority, but my gut says it’s not enough to bring what most people see as more or less a third term for Bush’s major policies.