So that’s the problem! …

Most pundits think Kamala Harris won last night’s big presidential debate. But Harris needs the support of undecided voters, not the plaudits of pundits. And this NYT article notes she didn’t overly impress some undecided voters. … The Times’ Kathleen Kingsbury agrees that voters “learned very few new details” about Harris’s plans. … Yet the Washington Post surveyed uncommitted swing-state voters in real-time last night and found a small shift in Harris’s favor. … Registered voters in a CNN insta-poll last night declared Harris the winner. But saying someone won a debate is not the same as saying someone won a lot of votes. … I’m eager to see other post-debate poll results. I assume Harris will get some sort of bump from last night, but it will probably be small. …

… The Globe’s James Pindell is a tough grader, giving Harris a ‘C’ and Trump a ‘C-.’ He makes good arguments for the low marks. … Did MSNBC take over Politico? The latter’s staff reactions are a little too cheerleader-ish. …

OK, here’s what you’ve been waiting for, i.e., my reaction: Harris clearly won. And I’m content with that. I was afraid she’d lose. Her performance may help a little in the polls, but not decisively so. …. One note of concern: Can her operatives please come up with more substantive things to say when she’s asked for details about her polices? The flowery platitudes aren’t working.

Update –  Trump, Republicans and other right-wing media types are typically whining about the media. … When things go wrong, they have to find a villain, I suppose.

Here’s more evidence that the Israeli government is trying to find a face-saving way to declare victory and end the war in Gaza, i.e. they’re now reportedly offering Hamas leader Yahya Sinar safe passage out of Gaza in a bid to end the conflict. … As previously mentioned, Israel’s declared goal of destroying Hamas was never realistic. That’s why they’ve unofficially set a new goal of simply getting rid of Sinar, one way or the other.

At the Atlantic, Harvard economist David Deming takes on “insular and status-obsessed’ economists within his profession, arguing they’re increasingly out of touch with regular people and writing too many “mathematically sophisticated papers that get them tenure but have little effect on the real world.” …

And, oh, he cites a recent economic paper by economists showing how award-winning economists tend to be concentrated at just eight elite universities. 

This is just a great business story. … There’s something about free shrimp, or super-cheap shrimp, that brings out the worst in people, btw.

Update – And here’s another good business story, via the BBJ, on the closing of Boston’s Motif FoodWorks, after the Ginkgo Bioworks spinout raised $226 million in funding. That’s a lot of money to lose on a start-up.

The reviews are in: T12 failed in his debut yesterday as a Fox NFL game analyst. But I’d argue he failed even before he failed. The ridiculous $375 million contract he got from Fox was bad enough, a figure so over the top that it alienated fans and raised legit questions about whether anyone deserved so much for so little. But all the pre-game hype about how much he practiced and studied tapes before his debut blah, blah, generated the impression that he wasn’t a natural, that it was all contrived and studio-tested. That was more damaging to his debut than the contract, if you ask me. 

You’ve heard of “sane-washing,” i.e. when a news outlet reports seriously on one thing that Donald Trump says without mentioning the other crazy things he says in a speech, thus making him look more sane than he really is. Well, here’s the opposite sane-washing, courtesy of Universal Hub’s Adam Gaffin, who covers the conviction of a former Faulkner Hospital doc who got in a whole bunch of trouble for participating in the Jan. 6 mayhem at the U.S. Capitol. … The story starts off slowly, but picks up steam as her defense attorney’s arguments pick up steam in their absurdity. No sane-washing in Adam’s coverage. …

And fear not. I’ll be zeroing in on future, though not quite as absurd, “sane-washing” issues tied to the left. I got a minor start on this front the other day (see below for my prior ‘Are we really going to have wall-to-wall coverage of campus protests again?’).

I’ve been sensing the same thing. … It’s not just the Times/Siena poll. Other surveys show the race has become what we all knew it would become: damn close.

This isn’t capitalism. It’s criminal neglect. From the Globe: “The Spotlight Team identified at least 15 instances in which Steward patients died after failing to receive professionally accepted standards of care due to equipment issues or staffing shortages. This total omits deaths due to individual lapses in judgment or medical errors in order to focus on the real, systemic Steward scandal, the one driven by radical under-investment by management in hospitals that mainly serve patients on the lower end of the economic spectrum — often those most in need of care.’

The team cites staff shortages in critical areas, surgeries canceled due to stiffed vendors not delivering vital equipment, medical tests delayed, hospital personnel scrounging for basic supplies (including toilet paper), etc. etc. All while its CEO and investors played shell games to reap huge “profits” from the formerly non-profit hospitals. 

Another impressive BC win (and almost too impressive). … From Bob Ryan: “It’s time to climb aboard the Boston College football bandwagon.”