“The fundamental difference between myself and Senata Obama is that I’m completely insane and he isn’t.”

Oh, that John McCain. Saying “my friends” as much as Sarah Palin says “betcha” and “gosh” — and sounding just as insincere. Telling joke after joke that fell flatter than … I don’t know, something that’s really flat. (And how about that terse exchange between Chris Matthews and McCain flack Mike DuHaime on the late edition of Hardball? Matthews clearly wanted to issue a Philly-style beat-down as they went back and forth about McCain’s Tom Brokaw/treasury secretary barb, and I’d guess a fair number of viewers were encouraging him from their couches.) Visibly seething with anger and resentment for 90 minutes as Barack Obama wiped the friggin’ floor with him. He’s really quite the character.

I couldn’t sleep at all last night, just as I couldn’t sleep the night before the vice-presidential debate. (Couldn’t sleep after the vice-presidential debate, either. It took hours for my brain to recover from the trauma of trying to understand Sarah Palin’s answers.) I’m tortured by the thought of having to endure another four years under another Republican president. I don’t know what repulsive stunts the McCain campaign might pull at this point to improve their flagging poll numbers. Part of me thinks they can’t sink much lower than what they’re already doing. Another part of me, the part that has lived around Republicans for 25 years, expects to turn on the news tomorrow to find Sarah Palin delivering a stump speech in Imperial Wizard garb — to rapturous applause and Nazi salutes.

What I do know is that after tonight’s “wipe-out,” as Andrew Sullivan is calling it, I’ll finally get a bit of sleep. Then tomorrow night I’ll start worrying again, if any of you want to join me.