It's a rare presidential election year where the vice-presidential debate gets real media focus, let alone rivals the presidential debates for viewership. Yet many are saying that tonight's debate between VP candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin may actually be seen by more people than the presidential debate last week. If you're not one of the many watching, you can still follow the action with us here with our liveblog.

EDIT: And you can also click in for our post-debate analysis of the debate, and a collection of takes from other sources around the Internet.

In what Chris Cillizza is calling "the latest in a series of negative developments for the Republican ticket," Republican presidential candidate John McCain is bowing out of Michigan, and will not be running any more ads in the state that was once thought to be a key battleground and a bellwether for the nation as a whole.

Democratic and Republican leaders came together this morning to try and breathe new life into the financial market rescue bill that was voted down on the House floor yesterday.

In a continuation of the financial sector tumble, Citigroup will be buying out Wachovia's banking operations at approximately $1 per share. Upon the completion of the deal, the nation's three largest banks, Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase, will hold nearly a third of the nation's deposits.

We've been waiting for this a long time — it's time for the first presidential debate of the 2008 election cycle. Tonight's debate will be held at the University of Mississippi in Oxford; we'll be bringing you the hot bits of the debate live here at the Blue.

Arizona Senator and Republican presidential candidate John McCain wanted to be a part of the debate on the financial crisis in Washington, and yesterday he made his mark, as Congressional talks on a bipartisan agreement fell apart yesterday after McCain's arrival.

This afternoon, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison announced that she will not seek re-election to the #4 spot in the Senate Republican leadership.

The presumptive leader of the Republican Party, Senator John McCain, stated today that he would rather be senatorial than presidential. McCain is suspending his campaign and opting out of Friday's presidential debate to head back to Washington and participate in Senate debate over the much-decried financial bailout bill that would give the Treasury Department unchecked power over regulatory decisions in that arena.

A couple of ads noting McCain's poor decisions with regard to the ideas and people he supports have been making the rounds on YouTube lately. One rebuts the distance he's recently tried to put between himself and President Bush, and the other looks at his "judgment" in choosing Palin as his VP. I think they make an interesting one-two punch. The videos follow.

It will hardly come as a surprise to anyone that knows me that I think Rachel Maddow, host of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC as well as of a radio show on Air America sharing the name, is remarkably clever and has a knack for being able to distill the substance of any given issue and present it in a witty, understandable format. Case in point — here's Rachel explaining the root of the problem with the financial sector in about a minute (and then dissing Ronald Reagan in the subsequent 30 seconds):