Everybody loves a dark suit, but who wears one 24/7? (Unless you’re a banker freaking out about the economy and sleeping in your office.)

Seems folks over at the McCain/Palin camp agree. Scrolling through the wires reveals a softer side of Sarah Palin during her swing this week through Florida — a key battleground state with 27 electoral votes. As the race drags on, she’s digging deep into a more varied (regular-mom) wardrobe. Sure beats business basic. Am I wrong? See for yourself:

Here’s the VP running mate Monday morning in Clearwater, Fla. For someone from Alaska, it must be downright sweltering on that podium, and she’s dressed for the event.

Still in white and still in Florida, here she is Tuesday at The Jacksonville Landing in Jacksonville, Fla.

And, still in Florida, she’s all in blue at Palm Beach International Airport on Monday morning in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP photos)

Every morning the first thing I do is scroll through cryptic alerts of rollovers, shots fired, houses burned … chainsaw kickbacks to the face … and victims “trapped” and “pronounced.” It’s all part of a constant police beat captured in deadly acronyms (DOA) and step-on-it alerts (smoke showing). Here’s a few from today:

• Route 128 / motorist ejected / fatal
• Dorchester / 1 DOA
• Chainsaw kickback / Holliston on High Street / with lacerations.
• Bank robbery / dye pack given / Windham, NH

We’ll cover it all, or sure try and we’ll put some more on the daily police beat. It’s the pulse of the city told in staccato nomenclature.

It appears we have a bailout. The voting is now open in the U.S. House of Representatives on the bailout bill. The measure, once $700 billion is now closer to $1 trillion after costly add-ons were tucked into the bill, but it looks as if the bill has passed, but with voting still open votes can be changed. The tally:

145 171 222 235 255 263 “yea”

70 87 129 151 167 171 “nay”

The Associated Press, now pitching all political news with a left curve, charges that John McCain was “irritable” during an editorial board session in Iowa.

Antsy. Brusque. Sarcastic. I gotta see this. Not wanting to be spoon-fed the AP interpretation of the world day and night, I surfed over to the video of the McCain interview on the Des Moines Register site to see for myself.

• Click here for a direct link to the paper’s gallery of videos.

I refuse to let AP drive the news bus! Go see for yourself. What I’m hearing is a candidate who is serious — dead serious — about the market mess but “irritable?” Everyone I know — Democrats, Republicans and Independents — are frustrated, even “irritable,” about the tanking economy. Leave the jokes to Leno, Letterman and Tina, I’m all for some sobriety.

“If I sound angry, it’s because people are angry. People are angry. They are angry. They expect more of us. But I’ll tell you what, we never miss a recess or a pay raise.” McCain says in the paper’s video.

Come on, AP.  The circus of the primaries is over. It’s time to elect a president and I’m ready to hear both candidates address the issues that are threatening our economy — even if they need to be blunt. McCain may seem frustrated with questions about his running mate Sarah Palin, but even the Register video places his supposed irritability in context … when you listen to it for yourself:

“She has been a mayor, overseer of billions of dollars of natural resources … she’s been a governor, a mayor. With due respect, I strongly disagree with your premise (that she has lack of experience). I’m proud of her record. It’s not an accident she’s the most popular mayor in America,” McCain says.

“People are free to make up their minds,” he adds about Palin.

That’s the point, AP! Let people make up their minds. Go watch this video. Hear the candidate for yourself and tell me who is right — AP or me.

I hear a serious candidate. Come on AP, stick an “analysis” tag on your stories. And, for those ready to fire away, send me a link to a good Barack Obama video where he’s equally frustrated — “irritable?” — with the state of affairs and I’ll see what AP has to say!

• Just in from a colleague, who’s seeing a similar trend.

Here’s a YouTube clip worth watching, a reader says, if you care at all about the loan fiasco and the bailout debacle. Watch and tell me what you think.