There are two possible ways in which the Oct. 8 presidential debate will be interpreted by most of the media over the next several days – and both are favorable to Barack Obama.

The most likely outcome is a general press consensus that the town hall forum was roughly a draw; that both Obama and John McCain had their moments, but that neither delivered a memorable line or introduced any kind of game-changing wrinkle into the mix. This, obviously, would constitute good news for Obama, who entered the debate with his largest polling advantage since the summer conventions, and with the daily drip of devastating economic news seemingly draining the life from McCain’s campaign.  read more »

About a month ago, Vanity Fair deputy editor Doug Stumpf took Michael Lewis out to dinner at his boss Graydon Carter’s Waverly Inn. Mr. Stumpf brought along fellow Vanity Fair editor Punch Hutton and contributing editor Bethany McLean to help split the $55 truffled macaroni-and-cheese plates for the table.

Mr. Lewis, who has been (and still is, at press time) on contract with The New York Times Magazine and Portfolio, had been wined and dined by magazine editors before. But this trip to Graydon Carter’s own private-public domain was a first.

And now, Mr. Lewis has given Vanity Fair an oral agreement that he will drop both of those contracts, and he will sign exclusively with them.  read more »

One of the casualties of Michael Bloomberg’s move to run for a third term, it seems, is next year’s Democratic primary.

Yes, it’s still 11 months away, and the mayor has only just finished announcing his intention to overturn term limits, but the prospect of Mr. Bloomberg—and his billions of dollars—running again may have ended the contest before it even took shape.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a Bloomberg ally who was the favorite of much of the city’s business establishment, reacted immediately by announcing that she would abandon a planned run if the mayor went for reelection.

City Comptroller Bill Thompson, the only minority candidate in the prospective Democratic field, says that he’s running, but doesn’t sound incredibly convincing.  read more »

After two heirs to the Seagram liquor fortune sold their townhouses last summer for 11 times what each had paid a decade earlier, or after a hedge funder set a co-op record twice this year by buying a penthouse for $46 million and selling it for $2.9 million more, brokers nodded their heads and repeated their eight-word mantra for New York’s absurdly bubbly high-end real estate: So many eager buyers, so few trophy properties.

According to numbers prepared for The Observer by research site StreetEasy, the days of easy luxury apartment sales are over. As of Monday, Manhattan had 168 super-luxury listings (apartments and townhouses asking at least $15 million each).  read more »

Before Nicolle Wallace took over the role of senior adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign, the wrangling on the evening news in recent weeks over Sarah Palin’s performance in interviews with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric might have been the kind of on-air debate she relished.

“Governor Palin did fantastic,” the 36-year-old told The Observer in a telephone interview on the afternoon of Oct. 6.

But since she took on this high-level communications job with the campaign in May of this year, Ms. Wallace has had to relinquish her spot as a G.O.P.-credentialed commentator for CBS News.

Her analysis would have been provocative: In the aftermath of the Palin-Couric encounters, pundits took turns pummeling the Alaska governor’s apparent lack of preparation and arguing about just how much the interviews had damaged her credibility as a vice presidential candidate.  read more »

Nothing in the presidential campaign so far has been as instructive as its swift descent into the politics of personal destruction. Although voters have probably heard little lately that they did not already know about Senator Barack Obama, they have learned something very important about Senator John McCain.

Back when this contest began, Mr. McCain expressed the desire for a different kind of campaign than we have seen in recent years. Rather than the old style of character-assassination politics perfected by his former nemesis Karl Rove to defeat him, Al Gore and John Kerry, the Arizona Republican urged a substantive debate and a fair comparison of public careers.  read more »

Anthony Weiner is also criticizing the City Council for introducing legislation to change term limits because he says  changing the law legislatively "takes away the right of New Yorkers to vote."

Always on message, Weiner also notes that there is some geographic snobbery in the fact that hearing on the bill will be held in Manhattan.

Today's announcement that there will be a hearing – beginning at 3 pm
– for citizens to come to Manhattan and complain is not a substitute
for a vote by all our citizens. It's symbolic of the overall process,
which takes away the right of New Yorkers to vote, allows the Council
to rush the process and offers only one afternoon of hearings on such
a fundamental change.

"New Yorkers around the city deserve hearings in their boroughs, and a
normal process for considering this important legislation.

The sixth season of Project Runway will be delayed until NBC and Lifetime can resolve their differences in court. [LA Times via  The Cut] 

The "appearances" that Sacha Baron Cohen made at Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks as a character named "Bruno" were for footage for his next mockumentary about the fashion world. [WWD]

The economy has caused some retail buyers to cut their spring orders 15 to 20 percent after seeing the runways. [WWD] 

Donatella Versace will co-host the Whitney Gala on October 20. [FWD]   read more »

Bill Thompson is out with a statement criticizing the City Council for moving ahead with Michael Bloomberg's plan to change the term-limits law. This time he doesn't name names.

Thompson said:

Today, the New York City Council introduced two measures, one that would allow the Council and the Mayor to single-handedly grant themselves the ability to run for a third term. The other measure would allow New York City voters to make the decision.

The choice is clear: People must come before politics. It is inappropriate for the Mayor and City Council to pass legislation that ignores the will of the voters. A government should serve its people and not itself. New Yorkers deserve nothing less.

 

 

Famous faces have long adorned the walls of New York restaurants, from the caricatures of world leaders at the Palm to the autographed glossies of pro athletes at the Pump. But when the chef Laurent Tourondel opened BLT Market in the Ritz Carlton at Central Park last fall, he decided to decorate the new space with snapshots of a guy cradling a duck; another one wielding a big slab of ribs; and a saintly looking woman sporting a wheel of cheese as if it were a halo.

These hitherto anonymous purveyors—butchers, farmers, fishmongers—are the new stars of a New York food scene consumed with carefully “sourced” ingredients.  read more »