It's game on. 59 days until the election. I don't think this week's polls are indicative of much since both sides will be rallied by their respective conventions. I think we need two weeks before polls become reliable indicators of voters' intentions in November.

Today, I'm wondering, what were Barack Obama's biggest mistakes in the campaign to date and how many can he rectify in the time remaining?

Since we now have fewer opponents to the Democratic ticket on the site, I'm going to ask readers who intend to vote for the Dems in November to weigh in.

Here's my list: [More...]

Now that the Republican Convention has ended, it's time for the rest of us to remember This is Our Country, and John McCain, Sarah Palin, James Dobson and the radical right can't have it.

I took this video in Des Moines at a campaign event for John Edwards. I chose it because he has the audience -- all Democrats -- sign along with him on the refrain, "This is Our Country."

We need to remember this in the next 60 days. The country that George Bush and the Republicans stole in 2000 and kept in 2004 belongs to us. Eight long and miserable years later, it's up to us to take it back. [More...]

Calling Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. That's the McCain/Palin ticket. Take us back to the mid-1970's.

Reaction from others: Jeffrey Toobin on CNN: The worst acceptance speech ever. Not a single new policy idea.

David Gergen: It struck an emotional chord with those in the hall, but the substantive part was poor, he didn't differentiate between him and Bush and the country has had enough of Bush.

USA, USA, USA!

A condensed version of John McCain's convention speech:

I want to thank the president for keeping us safe from more attacks like the one that he failed to prevent during his first term.

As a first lady, Cindy will rock.

I respect Sen. Obama. We're both Americans. But only one of us was a POW.

After I win, I'll work closely with any other patriot who was a POW.

My friends, please shut up with the "USA" chants. I have to finish this in prime time, before I get cut off for the local news.

I know it's tough to be unemployed. If we didn't have a government, you'd all still have jobs. Sarah Palin will help me do away with government.

Sarah Palin has a lot of kids, just like me. We could start our own little town in Alaska.

Change is coming. We'll fix stuff. We're maverick repairmen.

John McCain is about to make his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination for President of these United States.

If you're watching, live blog along with me in the comments.

Update: The video. Did you know John McCain was a POW?

Update: No podium. He waves to the crowd. Sure looked like he raised his arm above his chest to me.

Camera pans to a woman teary-eyed with reverence and he hasn't said anything but "Thank You." [More...]

A condensed version of Cindy McCain's convention speech:

I have a lot of kids. Watch me kiss them.

As I fly around the country in my private jet doing my duty to help the unfortunate, I get really sad.

If we had no federal government to get in our way, rich people could do so much more to help the poor. Only Republicans understand this.

My husband rocks. Women look for a good father when they decide to get hitched. John takes showers with us, er, John showers us with love.

If you don't elect my husband, we're all going to die.

You can trust my husband. He's a good driver. So is Sarah Palin. You want their hands on the wheel.

[more ...]

John McCain, More of the Same.

Is anybody watching the Republican National Convention? John McCain speaks at 10 p.m. ET. We'll have a new thread up for that, but if anyone has anything to say before then, here's a place and an open thread.

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland:

“Just from what little I’ve seen of [Michelle Obama] and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they’re uppity,” Westmoreland said, according to The Hill, a newspaper that covers Capitol Hill.

When asked to clarify, Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.”

The only surprise is that it took so long for a prominent Republican to say it out loud.

“It was only a matter of time before Republican officials shifted from oblique racially-charged language to brazen racially-charged language,” wrote Steve Benen, author of a blog for Washington Monthly magazine.

Westmoreland is thinking about running for governor of Georgia in 2010. Is he trying to solidify his base?

In light of last night's speeches at the Republican National Convention, the Obama campaign is reminding the public of this video, shown at the Democratic National Convention. These are the community organizers who were the objects of scorn and derision yesterday in speeches by Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani. Ordinary people trying to make their communities and their country better. To the white conservative crowd, "community organizer" might be a code word, but ridiculing people who do good work is a strategy destined to backfire.

Sometimes reports of romantic affairs by public officials, if true, matter. For Charles Dean Hood, set to be executed next week, it could mean the difference between life and death. A judge has set a hearing on whether the judge and prosecutor in his capital case were having a secret affair during Hood's trial:

The hearing will address arguments that Brewer's murder trial was unfair because of an alleged unethical romantic relationship between the judge presiding over the trial and the district attorney prosecuting the case.

Brewer ordered retired judge Verla Sue Holland and former Collin County District Attorney Tom O'Connell to be ready to be interviewed by lawyers Monday – if Brewer agrees with Hood's attorney that the pair should be deposed.

[More...]

Disgraced Republican Jack Abramoff was sentenced today in his second case to four years in prison, to be served concurrently with the six year sentence he is already serving.

Judge Ellen Huvelle issued the sentence after federal prosecutors recommended leniency due to Abramoff's cooperation in pursuing corruption cases against lawmakers and former administration officials. He faced a maximum of 11 years under a plea deal reached in 2006.

Abramoff sang for his supper and got rewarded big time. Great job by defense attorneys Abbie Lowell and Neal Sonnett.

A "mountain of dismal economic news" released today will not help a McCain-Palin ticket that has no economic plan more sophisticated than "What Bush did" and "drill, baby, drill."

[T]he Labor Department said new applications for unemployment insurance rose by 15,000 from the previous week. That broadly missed expectations for a fourth-straight week of declines, and heightened worries that the average American — already feeling the effects of the weak housing market — will have even less means to spend. ... Economists are predicting the eighth straight monthly payrolls drop, and a rise in the unemployment rate.

That typical Americans have less to spend is evidenced by the absence of spending, as shown by poor retail sales figures last month. Crude oil prices dropped, but not as much as analysts expected. All of this contributed to another stock market plunge. If John McCain continues to cling to the Bushian belief that the economy is strong, he might have to worry that even the reddest of the red states will turn bright blue in November.

Will McCain come up with a realistic plan to turn the economy around? Listen for one tonight when McCain accepts his party's nomination.