But the black vote does nothing for Obama with that 20%, because it's already in the 40% he begins with (and I'll acknowledge Clinton could lose some of that vote if she's the nominee). You don't get to count it again, because there are virtually no black swing voters in the 20%. There are a lot of Latinos in the middle though.

Similarly, the youth vote doesn't add much to Obama pulling votes out of the middle. In fact it probably only offsets at best the votes of Latinos, whites and women Obama loses. An increase in black turnout helps him too, but not much.

It would be nice if Democrats fought this stuff - see any evidence of this happening?  Me neither.  Until it does, we need to be prepared for the reality that the media will do the RNC's job (as they always do) and try to torpedo the Democratic candidate.  So we need to be aware of and ready for possible attacks.  Saying it's gonna be a non-issue or "played out" won't cut it.

In fact, the Democratic establishment has done an absolutely horrible job of prepping the ground for an attack on McCain.  See here for more.  And I no more expect a vigorous defense from the Big Lib pundits for Obama than they gave Gore in 2000 - ie no defense at all.

But here's the rub for me - The Gore stuff in 2000 was largely bs.  Made up.  He never said he invented the internet.  Didn't lie about Love Canal and was perfectly accurate in his statements about Love Story.  The media twisted and turned all that and turned a stand up guy into a serial liar.