The floor is open for consideration of alternative candidates to the big two. Some of you have mentioned how you are voting for Mr. Barr or Mr. Baldwin. I believe there are other candidates besides them, not just third party but fourth and fifth and who knows how many. Most of us don’t know too much about these alternatives (Constitution, Libertarian, Green. . .). If you support some other candidate than the Democratic or Republican nominees, please tell us about that individual and make the case for why he or she would make the best president and promote the best policies.

P.S.: I just learned that on Sunday night, C-SPAN will televise a debate between various of the alternative candidates.

Both John McCain and Barack Obama attended the Al Smith dinner, a traditional gathering of mostly New York Democrats devoted mainly to humor. Both candidates gave funny, self-deprecating speeches. A sample:

“This is a very distinguished and influential audience and as good a place as any to make a major announcement,” McCain said. “Events are moving fast in my campaign. And, yes, it is true that this morning I dismissed my entire team of senior advisors. All of their positions will now be held by a man named ‘Joe The Plumber.’

“Already my friends, my opponents have been subjecting Joe to their vicious attack machine. His voracity has been questioned by Barack Obama’s running mate, ‘Joe The 6-Term Senator.’ He claims that this honest, hard working small business man could not possibly have enough income to face a tax increase under the Obama plan. What they don’t know is Joe The Plumber recently signed a very lucrative contract with a wealthy couple to handle all the work on all seven of their houses.” . . .

“This campaign needed the common touch of the working man. After all, it began so long ago with the heralded arrival of the man known to Oprah Winfrey as ‘The One.’ Being a friend and colleague of Barack I just called him ‘That One,’” McCain said in reference to his bully-like tactics in the second presidential debate. “He doesn’t mind at all. In fact, he even has a pet name for me: ‘George Bush.’” . . . .

“It’s been that kind of contest and I come here tonight to the Al Smith Dinner knowing I’m the underdog in these final weeks, but if you know where to look there are signs of hope, even in the most unexpected of places, even in the room filled with proud Manhattan Democrats. I can’t shake that feeling that some people here are pulling for me.

“I’m delighted to see you here tonight, Hillary.” . . .

Obama later took the podium and said he’s not necessarily “the chosen one,” but could in fact be a superhero.

“For the last few weeks John has been out on the campaign trail asking this question: Who is Barack Obama? I have to admit I was a little surprised by this question. The answer is right there on my Facebook page,” Obama said. “But look, I don’t want to be coy about this. We’re a couple weeks away from an important election. Americans have a big choice to make, and if anyone feels like they don’t know me by now, let me give them some answers …

“Who is Barack Obama? Contrary to the rumors you may have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El, to save the planet Earth.”

He then launched into the genealogy of his birth name.

“Many of you know I got my name, Barack, from my father,” Obama said. “It’s actually Swahili for ‘That One.’

“And I got my middle name, obviously, from someone who never thought I’d be running for president.”

From Obama’s 95% Illusion:It depends on what the meaning of ‘tax cut’ is:

Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven [tax] credits for individuals:

A $500 tax credit ($1,000 a couple) to “make work pay” that phases out at income of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 per couple.
A $4,000 tax credit for college tuition.
A 10% mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage interest deduction and other housing subsidies).
A “savings” tax credit of 50% up to $1,000.
An expansion of the earned-income tax credit that would allow single workers to receive as much as $555 a year, up from $175 now, and give these workers up to $1,110 if they are paying child support.
A child care credit of 50% up to $6,000 of expenses a year.
A “clean car” tax credit of up to $7,000 on the purchase of certain vehicles.

Here’s the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be “refundable,” which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer — a federal check — from taxpayers to nontaxpayers.

He also wants to remove the cap on Social Security withholding. Right now, once a person makes around $100,000, the Social Security withholding out of the paycheck stops. Whether payroll deductions that one never sees again constitute a tax is a matter of definition, though the money goes right into the federal stash since there isn’t a social security lockbox. One could make the case that this needs to happen to save Social Security. At any rate, contrary to Obama’s claims, this will amount to a big tax on a lot of people making less than $250,000.

The International Herald Tribune explains to the world that the U.S. has history of intervention, including nationalizing companies. The article notes that whereas the term “nationalizing” is OK to use in Europe, we aren’t supposed to use that word in Americca:

In other countries, the government bank-investment programs are routinely called nationalization programs. But that is not likely in America, where nationalization is a word to avoid, given the cultural aversion to anything that hints of socialism.

“Putting this plan on the table makes a lot of sense, but you can’t call it nationalization here,” said Simon Johnson, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. “In France, it is fine, but not in the United States.”

In times of war and national emergency, Washington has not hesitated. In 1917, the government seized the railroads to make sure goods, armaments and troops moved smoothly in the interests of national defense during World War I. Bondholders and stockholders were compensated, and railroads were returned to private ownership in 1920, after the war ended.

During World War II, Washington seized dozens of companies including railroads, coal mines and, briefly, the Montgomery Ward department store chain. In 1952, President Harry Truman seized 88 steel mills across the country, asserting that unyielding owners were determined to provoke an industry-wide strike that would cripple the Korean War effort. That forced nationalization did not last long, since the Supreme Court ruled the action an unconstitutional abuse of presidential power.

In banking, the U.S. government stepped in to take an 80 percent stake in the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust in 1984. Continental Illinois failed in part because of bad oil-patch loans in Oklahoma and Texas. As one of the country’s top 10 banks, Continental Illinois was deemed “too big to fail” by regulators, who feared wider turmoil in the financial markets. Continental was sold to Bank of America in 1994.

Yet the nearest precedent for the plan the Treasury is weighing, finance experts say, is the investments made by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in the 1930s. The agency, established in 1932, not only made loans to distressed banks but also bought stock in 6,000 banks, at a total cost of about $3 billion, said Richard Sylla, an economist and financial historian at the Stern School of Business at New York University.

A similar effort these days, in proportion to the current economy, would be $400 to $500 billion, Sylla said.

When the economy eventually stabilized, the government sold the stock to private investors or the banks themselves.

That program was a good one, experts say, but the U.S. government moved too slowly to deal with the financial crisis, which precipitated and lengthened the Great Depression. The lesson of history, it seems, is for Washington to move quickly in times of economic crisis to revive the patient.

So we did it before, though it was once ruled unconstitutional and an abuse of presidential power. Doesn’t that constitute a legal precedent? Why does this not make me feel better?