Okay, here’s the story on every radio station I listen to in the morning on my drive to the kitten groomer’s, up to and including the teeny-bopper Avril Lavigne-obssessed spot on the dial:

Kerry must win this debate in order to salvage his campaign.

That’s the meme. Not that Kerry has won or lost, but that this is it for him. You’d think there was only one debate. You’d think this was the last debate. You’d think that if Kerry didn’t actually rip Bush’s heart from his body and eat it on TV, Mary Beth and the rest of the Kerry gang were gonna shut down the Kerry blog and go home. You’d think the world was going to end tomorrow.

And lest we all think the deejays of Chicago are the only ones suffering from this delusion, you can read more about it here, here, and here.

What we need to do is stop buying into this. There are three debates. I know we’re excited, I know we can’t wait to see Kerry on stage with Bush, I know we think he’ll blow him away. This isn’t a case of a lack of confidence in the candidate on my part.

It’s a case of realizing there’s a whole month to go. No one will be happier than me when Kerry delivers a KO tonight. No one will be dancing faster (well, maybe Teresa). But we can’t think that after tonight, our work’s done.

There’s two more debates. There’s a month left of campaigning. For starters, Steve has some ideas about what we can do starting tomorrow.

Mars, bitches!

A.