Politics ordinarily has a certain predictability. Yet presidential politics this year has often seemed to resemble what science writer James Gleick described in his book Chaos. "Chaos," he quotes one physicist as saying, "eliminates the Laplacian fantasy of deterministic predictability." Time and again this year, unpredicted and seemingly unpredictable developments have reshaped the presidential race. And they don't seem to stop coming.

At the beginning of the year, things seemed fairly simple. Democrats had a big lead in party identification and seemed headed to victory. Democrats seemed likely to settle on a nominee quickly, while Republicans seemed headed for a long, drawn-out primary fight. But three developments changed the shape of the race, to the benefit of Republicans.

Here's an interesting article on why federal agencies have had such a difficult time purchasing information technology. It seems that government management procedures are just not supple enough to cope with high tech. Once upon a time, government spurred technology development, most notably with the Manhattan Project but also with many military contracts. In the last 20 years or so, the private sector, or at least the information technology sector, seems to be sprinting ahead of government.

Seventeen. That's how many times, according to this White House statement (hat tip Gateway Pundit), that the Bush administration has called for tighter regulation of the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Congress has cooperated only once. In spring 2007, as House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank likes to point out, the House did pass a bill in response. The Senate did not act until 2008; Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd spent most of 2007 camped out in Iowa running for president. The legislation passed by Congress in 2008 enabled Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to put Fannie and Freddie into federal conservatorship this summer when they failed. But it didn't prevent them from spewing a huge amount of toxic waste, in the form of subprime and Alt-A mortgages, into our financial institutions from 2004 to 2007. As Stephen Spruiell points out in The Corner on National Review Online, Fannie and Freddie spewed out $1 trillion worth (face value) of subprime mortgages between 2005 and 2007. That's a whole lot of toxic waste. For more detail, consult the items referred to in my previous blogpost on this subject (most of the comments seem to have been disputes about the plot line of the movie It's a Wonderful Life, which I should think could be settled by consulting a reference work).

This New York Times story is an attempted whitewash of Barack Obama's long-time relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers. Stanley Kurtz of National Review Online explains why the article is a whitewash. Other trenchant critiques come from Abe Greenwald at Commentary's Contentions blog and Scott Johnson at PowerLine. Sarah Palin raised the issue at a Carson, Calif., rally Saturday and characterized Obama, fairly, I think, as "palling around with terrorists."

I thought Sarah Palin won—because she (far) exceeded expectations, because she showed considerable suppleness (countering Joe Biden's statement that the commanding general said that John McCain's surge strategy would not work in Afghanistan), and spotlighted her winning personality. She showed the same smiling confidence that she did in her acceptance speech September 3 and that was missing in her interview with Katie Couric. Biden's performance was by and large acceptable, but he made some significant misstatements, notably on the Constitution. Article I of the Constitution is not about the executive branch, as Biden said, but about the legislative branch, in which Biden has served for 35 years. And the vice president doesn't preside over the Senate just in cases of ties; he (or she) is entitled to preside over the Senate at any time. Imagine the uproar from Mainstream Media if Palin had made such errors! She does seem to be taking a little flak over her seemingly bizarre statement that she would seek more constitutional powers for the vice presidency. But, as you may remember, Lyndon Johnson, one of our most experienced vice presidents, sought to continue to attend Democratic Caucus meetings after he was elected vice president. He was hastily disinvited.

Contrary to widespread expectations in Washington and on Wall Street, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's financial bailout/rescue package was not agreed to at the White House meeting that started at 4 p.m. Thursday. The meeting included the congressional and committee leaders of both parties and the administration's top financial officials, plus two presidents—George W. Bush and either Barack Obama or John McCain.

Picking up on my Frozen North post, Dan at Gay Patriot argues that the McCain-Palin ticket has a chance to pick up one electoral vote from Maine's Second Congressional District. (Maine, like Nebraska, assigns two electoral votes to the ticket that carries the state and one each to the ticket that carries each congressional district.) He notes helpfully that Maine's moose hunting season occurs this week and also October 13-18.