Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been up and down these past weeks. Her choice as the Republican vice presidential candidate at first gave her and John McCain a strong bump in the polls. But then her disastrous interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric made even Republicans question her competence. Palin stuck to her story that Alaska's proximity to Russia and Canada gives her foreign policy experience, but could not provide a specific example. When asked about the current financial squeeze, she responded with vague generalities about tax cuts, health care and job creation. She could not name a magazine she reads or a Supreme Court decision besides Roe v. Wade that she disagrees with. “;Saturday Night Live”; mercilessly repeated Palin's actual answers and CNN's Jack Cafferty called Palin's performance “;pathetic.”;

As Palin ended her first month and McCain his second month without a real press conference, reporters were furious. The media narrative focused on the inadequacies of Sarah Palin and McCain's negative campaigning. On the lightweight talk show “;The View,”; McCain was told to his face that his attack ads about Obama were lies.

There were other unhappy disclosures. Palin has repeatedly claimed that she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere, but it turns out she supported it until it became a national laughingstock. The proposed gas pipeline she has cited as her greatest accomplishment faces lengthy lawsuits from Native Canadian “;First People”; before it can pass through their lands. Also, she hired inexperienced high school classmates as Alaska attorney general and agriculture secretary.

  Then there's Troopergate. As mayor, Palin fired the town librarian after a discussion about banning books (the librarian was reinstated after a public outcry). As governor, she fired the public safety director when he did not fire her estranged ex-brother-in-law. She claims the director was fired because he went on unauthorized travel. Now it turns out he had signed approval from Palin's chief of staff. And although Palin says the Troopergate investigation is political, the legislative committee that issued the subpoenas for testimony consists of five Republicans and two Democrats. Palin's staff is refusing to testify.

However, in spite of these calamities, last week a well-coached Palin bounced back, performing reasonably well in Thursday's vice presidential debate.

Meanwhile, state-by-state Electoral College polls show that Barack Obama is again ahead by more than 50 electoral votes. Although Obama is criticized for not having a concise, passionate explanation of his economic policies, he leads in the 2004 Democratic states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota and the 2004 Republican states of Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and New Mexico; and is close in the 2004 Republican states of North Carolina, Indiana and Nevada. An ominous sign for McCain: His campaign has given up on Michigan. A speech scheduled for this week was cancelled and campaign aides said they were not going to buy any more TV advertising time.

  Skeptics say the polls are inaccurate, that some white voters will not vote for a black candidate. However, this is largely countered by a new factor: The polls generally do not reach cell-phone-only users, who are mostly young and mainly support Obama. The McCain campaign is trying to resurrect Karl Rove's winning ground game from 2000 and 2004, but they are playing catch-up compared to the Obama campaign, which has been running a superlative volunteer organization for 18 months. And Obama raised a record $66 million last month, 40 percent more than McCain.

Why the shift back to Obama? The mortgage-Wall Street meltdown has played a big part, with one million families losing their homes, retirement accounts dropping by 35-50 percent and major banks disappearing daily. The extraordinary picture of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson kneeling before Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to beg for the $700 billion bailout was a rare example of dollars deferring to democracy. But House Republicans balked at approving the bill and it had to be sweetened with tax cuts and pork-barrel money before they would go along.

The public already blames Republicans for the mess. Imagine how angry they would be if they knew that McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm was co- author of the 1999 bank deregulation bill that helped cause the crash. Half of Americans oppose the proposed bailout bill, which originally said that the Treasury secretary's actions could not be reviewed by any agency or court. (What about checks and balances?) Democrats successfully demanded bans on golden parachutes for executives, no help for foreign banks, congressional oversight, help for homeowners and the same stock ownership in saved companies that a private rescuer would get.

  In the midst of record job losses and bad financial news, there were unhelpful stories about how McCain owns several houses and wears $500 loafers, and how the crashed Freddie Mac mortgage company had been paying McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' lobbying company more than $15,000 a month.

It was also a turbulent time on the campaign trail. Conservative pundit George F. Will criticized McCain for having an unpresidential temperament after McCain demanded that the chairman of the independent Securities and Exchange Commission be fired.

As if to prove that Will was right, McCain suddenly said he was suspending his campaign and his participation in the debates until the Wall Street mess was fixed. Nevertheless, he went to several campaign events, attended the bailout summit without agreeing to the proposal, then decided to debate after all. He claimed credit for helping pass the bailout bill just before the House refused to pass it and claimed credit again after it finally did.

Was all this just clever kabuki designed to throw Obama off his game or yet another example of McCain's legendary impulsiveness? We report, you decide.

With four weeks to go, core issues and the contrast between the two main candidates and their campaigns have re-emerged as the central focus of the election. Obama is ahead once again. He says he can't sleep because of what faces him if he wins. Looks like he will.