Overall I felt relieved, good, hopeful after the big debate last evening. It doesn’t mean that I thought everything Biden said was positive, I didn’t, but most of the time he said the right things, sometimes very effectively and strongly, and I thought Trump performed poorly. A CNN instant poll reported that Biden won 53% to 39%, which seems believable to me given Biden’s 8-9% lead in national polls and how well he did.

My main problems with what Biden said were his continued opposition to banning fracking, his defense of private, profit-making health care, and his boasting about saying to China that US planes would continue to fly over the South China Sea. On that last one, think about how people in this country would respond to China or Russia or any country regularly flying planes in the Gulf of Mexico.

With the exception of the fracking issue, I thought Biden was very strong on the climate issue, as well as racial justice. This is definitely a different Joe Biden than we’ve seen in the past. It could be that it’s a Joe Biden rising to the challenges and reflecting the mass progressive movements of today.

However, as Jake Tapper said last night, the Republicans are going to be throwing dirt, lying, trying to confuse, trying to demoralize and intimidate voters probably more than they’ve ever done over the next 12 days. We continue to need many of us actively involved in the organized efforts to turn out that 53% of the population that supports Biden. Peoples Action, Our Revolution, Indivisible, the Biden/Harris campaign: these are some of the national groups doing good work along those lines. We can’t let up!

I woke up this morning feeling very weak physically, the weakest I’ve felt over the last 21 days. It could be the emotional anxiety about and energy put into listening to the debate and the analyses afterwards. I could, and expect I will, feel stronger as the day progresses; I hope so. But I can still sit at my computer and read and type.