There’s a lot of discussion about the candidates’ IQ scores, but I’ve only found good evidence for McCain and Palin (see links). The other scores are unverified and from multiple sources – please send any better figures/links in the comments and I will gladly update this. I’m throwing in some others for fun.

• >200 – “Unmeasurable genius”
• 180-200 – Highest genius
• 165-179 – High genius
• 155-164 – Genius (e.g., Nobel Prize winners)
• 145-154 – Genius (e.g., professors)
• 135-144 – Highly gifted (e.g., intellectuals)
• 125-134 – Gifted (e.g., post-graduate students)
• 115-124 – Above average (e.g., university students)

• Over 140 – Genius or near genius
• Garry Kasparov – IQ 190
• Ludwig Wittgenstein – IQ 190
• Voltaire – IQ 190
• Leonardo da Vinci – IQ 180
• Lord Byron – IQ 180
• Michelangelo – IQ 180
• James Woods – IQ 180
• George Friedrich Handel – IQ 170
• Stephen W. Hawking – IQ >160
• Bill Clinton – IQ 159-182
• Barack Obama – IQ 148-172
• Plato – IQ 170
• Galileo – IQ 165
• Ludwig van Beethoven – IQ 165
• Charles Darwin – IQ 165
• Charlotte Bronte – IQ 165
• Jonathan Swift – IQ 155
• Sharon Stone – IQ 154
• Abraham Lincoln – IQ 150
• Franklin D. Roosevelt – IQ 147
• Joe Biden – IQ 146
• Richard Nixon – IQ 143
• 120 – 140 – Very superior intelligence
• Hillary Clinton – IQ 140
• Madonna – IQ 140
• Harry Truman – IQ 132
• George W – IQ 91-134
• John McCain – IQ 133
• Jodie Foster – IQ 132
• Nicole Kidman – IQ 132
• Dwight D. Eisenhower – IQ 122
• 110 – 119 – Superior intelligence
• 90 – 109 – Normal or average intelligence
• Ronald Reagan – IQ 105
• 80 – 89 – Dullness
• Sarah Palin – IQ 82
• 70 – 79 – Borderline deficiency
• 50-70 – Mild mental retardation
• 35-50 – Moderate mental retardation
• 20-35 – Severe mental retardation
• IQ < 20 - Profound mental retardation

• A score of 132 equals the top 2%
• A score of 134 equals the top 1%
• 50% of IQ scores fall between 90 and 110
• 70% of IQ scores fall between 85 and 115
• 95% of IQ scores fall between 70 and 130
• 99.5% of IQ scores fall between 60 and 140
• A score of 68 equals the bottom 2%
• A score of 66 equals the bottom 1%

Here’s just the Summary for a quick perusal – but you really have to read the analysis:

• Obama said McCain adviser Henry Kissinger backs talks with Iran “without preconditions,” but McCain disputed that. In fact, Kissinger did recently call for “high level” talks with Iran starting at the secretary of state level and said, “I do not believe that we can make conditions.” After the debate the McCain campaign issued a statement quoting Kissinger as saying he didn’t favor presidential talks with Iran.
• Obama denied voting for a bill that called for increased taxes on “people” making as little as $42,000 a year, as McCain accused him of doing. McCain was right, though only for single taxpayers. A married couple would have had to make $83,000 to be affected by the vote, and anyway no such increase is in Obama’s tax plan.
• McCain and Obama contradicted each other on what Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen said about troop withdrawals. Mullen said a time line for withdrawal could be “very dangerous” but was not talking specifically about “Obama’s plan,” as McCain maintained.
• McCain tripped up on one of his signature issues – special appropriation “earmarks.” He said they had “tripled in the last five years,” when in fact they have decreased sharply.
• Obama claimed Iraq “has” a $79 billion surplus. It once was projected to be as high as that. It’s now down to less than $60 billion.
• McCain repeated his overstated claim that the U.S. pays $700 billion a year for oil to hostile nations. Imports are running at about $536 billion this year, and a third of it comes from Canada, Mexico and the U.K.
• Obama said 95 percent of “the American people” would see a tax cut under his proposal. The actual figure is 81 percent of households.
• Obama mischaracterized an aspect of McCain’s health care plan, saying “employers” would be taxed on the value of health benefits provided to workers. Employers wouldn’t, but the workers would. McCain also would grant workers up to a $5,000 tax credit per family to cover health insurance.
• McCain misrepresented Obama’s plan by claiming he’d be “handing the health care system over to the federal government.” Obama would expand some government programs but would allow people to keep their current plans or chose from private ones, as well.
• McCain claimed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower had drafted a letter of resignation from the Army to be sent in case the 1944 D-Day landing at Normandy turned out to be a failure. Ike prepared a letter taking responsibility, but he didn’t mention resigning.

Here’s just one example:

Boeing Boasts

McCain was went too far when he said, "I saved the taxpayers $6.8 billion by fighting a contract that was negotiated between Boeing and DOD that was completely wrong. And we fixed it and we killed it."

McCain certainly did lead a fight to kill the contract, and the effort ended in prison sentences for defense contractors. But the contract isn’t exactly "fixed" yet. In fact, questions have been raised about the role McCain has played in helping a Boeing rival secure the new contract.

After the original Boeing contract to supply refueling airliners was nixed in 2003, the bidding process was reopened. And in early 2007, Boeing rival EADS/Airbus won the bid the second time around. But Boeing filed a protest about the way the bids were processed, and the Government Accountability Office released a report that found in Boeing’s favor. In the summary of GAO’s investigation, the organization said there were "significant errors" with the bid process and that the directions given to Boeing were "misleading."

Further, the New York Times reported that "McCain’s top advisers, including a cochairman of his presidential campaign, were lobbyists for EADS. And Mr. McCain had written to the Defense Department, urging it to ignore a trade dispute between the United States and Europe over whether Airbus received improper subsidies." A liberal campaign finance group ran an ad hitting McCain on the connections back in July and our colleagues at PolitiFact found their attacks to be true, saying: "Center for Responsive Politics prepared a report for PolitiFact that backs [the charge] up. U.S. employees of EADS/Airbus have contributed $15,700 in this election cycle to McCain’s campaign."

In the words of an English teacher at Wellesley College…

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

Oh beautiful, for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
‘Til all success be nobleness
And ev’ry gain divine!

Oh beautiful, for patriot’s dream
That sees beyond the years!
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives.
~Dorothy Thompson

Our defense is in the spirit which prized liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors.
~Abraham Lincoln

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
~William Faulkner

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
~Abraham Lincoln

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.
~Thomas Paine

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.
~William J. Clinton

I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.
~Simone de Beauvoir

Where liberty dwells, there is my country.
~Benjamin Franklin