The Spin predicts Congress will pass the bailout plan, the markets will fall before stabilizing, and the political obsession this week will be the Biden/Palin debate. Not very daring prognostications, huh?

How about this. GOP insiders panic and call for Palin to be replaced if she doesn't - at least - come close to holding her own with Biden at Thursday night's debate.

Fareed Zakaria, the Newsweek foreign policy writer and editor, has this to say:

"Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony? Is it too much to ask that she come to realize that she wants, in that wonderful phrase in American politics, "to spend more time with her family"? Having stayed in purdah for weeks, she finally agreed to a third interview. CBS's Katie Couric questioned her in her trademark sympathetic style. It didn't help. When asked how living in the state closest to Russia gave her foreign-policy experience, Palin responded thus:

'It's very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America. Where—where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to—to our state.'

There is, of course, the sheer absurdity of the premise. Two weeks ago I flew to Tokyo, crossing over the North Pole. Does that make me an expert on Santa Claus?"

And here's the link to Newsweek's cover story, Mr. Hot and Mr. Cook.

New York Times columnist William Kristol wrote today that a worried McCain dispatched his two top campaign aides to prep Palin. Biden, of course, could make one of the gaffes that are rapidly becoming his campaign trademark, but if Palin gibbers on as she did with Couric, McCain's market liquidity will take a big hit.

Perhaps the McCain operatives will recommend she emphasize her "Sexy Puritan" side, as described by this Slate writer, Tom Perrotta, who says Palin is the quintessential example:

"Sexy Puritans engage in the culture war on two levels—not simply by advocating conservative positions on hot-button social issues but by embodying nonthreatening mainstream standards of female beauty and behavior at the same time. The net result is a paradox, a bit of cognitive dissonance very useful to the cultural right: You get a little thrill along with your traditional values, a wink along with the wagging finger. Somehow, you don't feel quite as much like a prig as you expected to."

Perrotta also does us the service of ferreting out this web site: Christian Nymphos. We kid you not. Type it into Google and enjoy.

A final prediction. We'll soon see another McCain effort to change dynamic of the race in advance of Palin's appearance. Why?

The latest aggregated poll results have Obama with 302 electoral votes. It just takes 270 to win.

Click here for Philly.com's politics page and the Real Clear Politics poll tracker. (Scroll down.)