It's busy around here. My Flip Mino video recorder arrived today and I'm setting it up. The e-mails related to the convention are multiplying hourly, now well in excess of 100 a day, bringing my overall e-mail count to more than 300 daily.

The logistics are a bit overwhelming. Denver is just not a walking town and while everyone keeps talking about Downtown, not everything is in what we think of as downtown, including the Pepsi Center, Invesco, and a lot of venues where events are being held. So figuring out how to travel light with equipment is a challenge. [More...]

Bump and Update: Stephanie Tubbs Jones died about 6:12 pm ET.

***

Initial media information was incorrect. She is still alive but in critical condition. Contrary to media reports earlier, she did not die this morning. She suffered an anuerism while driving in Cleveland last night.

A 2007 profile of Rep. Jones is here.

My condolences go out to her family. She was 58 years old.

Update [2008-8-20 19:52:7 by Big Tent Democrat]: CBS poll also has it 45-42 Obama.

The NBC/WSJ poll has Obama leading 45-42, but Obama still having trouble with Clinton supporters:

[P]erhaps the biggest factor keeping the presidential race close has been Obama’s inability to close the deal with some of Hillary Clinton’s supporters. According to the poll, 52 percent of them say they will vote for Obama, but 21 percent are backing McCain, with an additional 27 percent who are undecided or want to vote for someone else. . . . For these reasons, Hart believes that Clinton’s speech on the Tuesday night of the Democratic convention will be a significant event. “The Democratic convention is more than a coronation,” he says. “It is an event where the words of Hillary Clinton are probably going to be exceptionally important.”

Oh, and Clinton would lead McCain by 6 49-43, in a hypothetical contest. But hypotheticals do not matter. And yep, picking Clinton for VP would solve Obama's problems to a great extent imo.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Who knew what they were thinking when they built the makeshift warehouse jail cells for those arrested during the Democratic National Convention, but at least they've scrapped one bad idea.

The razor wire covering the cells is being removed. Chain link fence coverings will be used instead. Also:

Sixty people an hour can be processed at the building, where cameras are set up to take mug shots alongside computerized fingerprinting stations.

A table holds six telephones, and two portable air-conditioning units each the size of a small truck pump cool air into the building. Each cell will contain 20 chairs. A sign posted on a steel column warns: "Electric stun devices used in this facility."

Anyone arrested in East Denver, not just protesters, will be transported to "Gitmo on the Platte."

Matt Yglesias jokingly proposes the Adlai Stevenson 1956 model for choosing the VP:

[H]ow about this — Obama could pull an Adlai Stevenson in 1956 and throw the selection open to the Convention delegates. The problem with that move, of course, is that you don’t get to fine-tune the pick. But it turns out to be the case that there seem to be substantial problems with all the possible picks. And opening the selection to the field would ensure huge media coverage of the convention and perhaps a bigger-than-usual convention bump.

Yeah, like that would not be a disaster with pro- and anti-Hillary force arraying. And the last thing Obama would need would be to be compared to Adlai Stevenson right now. It would be fun though to see that food fight. Let's makes this is an Open Thread.

By Big Tent Democrat

NATO sent a sternly worded letter to Russia. Russia responds with stern implied threats of its own:

Doubts surfaced over the future of military cooperation between NATO and Russia on Wednesday after Norway said Moscow had informed it of a decision to freeze all joint work with the alliance in the row over Georgia. However Russia's ambassador to NATO played down any future steps, saying the decisions were "of temporary character, of regional character, not global character."

[More...]

It took a while, and the Denver Host Committee missed a deadline, but all is well now. Denver has achieved its $40.6 million convention fundraising goal. And money is still coming in.

Congrats to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and DNC Host Committee co-chair, attorney Steve Farber.

Hickenlooper has spent dozens of nights and weekends and crisscrossed the country seeking donors. To a lesser extent, Gov. Bill Ritter and Sen. Ken Salazar also have been seeking donors.

Meanwhile, Denver fundraising giant, lobbyist and attorney Steve Farber had staked his reputation on getting the bills paid, reaching out to contacts near and far.

The additional funds necessary for the Invesco Field event where Sen. Obama will make his acceptance speech will be completed Friday. On a related note, billionaire New York Republican Tom Golisano donated $1 million last week to the Committee.

Update: Via radio: The Obama campaign says no events are planned in Indianapolis on Saturday.

Adding another layer to the Veepstakes, the Nashville Post reports today that signs are pointing to Evan Bayh as Sen. Barack Obama's veep choice:

NashvillePost.com has learned that senior campaign officials from the Barack Obama Presidential campaign are being dispatched from various locations around the country and are converging in Indianapolis for a “major event” to take place on Saturday.

...Sources in Denver, the site of next week's Democratic National Convention, say that individuals responsible for Obama's major public appearances have been pulled out of the city and are heading east towards Indiana.

More...

The Presidential electoral map is looking more an more like the Blue/Red split we have become accustomed to these past 8 years. The latest evidence of this is the PPP MO poll:

McCain’s advantage is 50-40, a seven point increase from PPP’s July poll, which showed him leading by just three points. Obama’s biggest issue is with white voters, who support McCain by a 56-35 margin. “There aren’t enough black voters in Missouri for Barack Obama to win it if he can’t make things more competitive among white voters,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “That’s going to be his challenge if he wants to have any chance at winning the state.”

Obama's chances of changing the Red/Blue dynamic are best in Colorado (9 EVs), Virginia (13 EVs) and Nevada (5 EVs). Iowa and New Mexico (12 EVs combined) have swung back and forth in the last 2 elections and Obama looks pretty good in those 2 states. That's 39 electoral votes total from those 5 states. Obama needs 18 more than Kerry to win the Presidency, so if he wins Iowa and New Mexico and holds the Kerry states, then he only needs only one of VA or CO (NM gets him to a 269-269 tie). Of course, Florida (27 EVs) or Ohio (20 EVs) alone would do the trick, but they seem a second thought for the Obama campaign.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

On the list of speakers at the Democratic National Convention is Lilly Ledbetter, whose case before the Supreme Court led to a shameful 5-4 decision barring women from suing for unlawful wage discrimination unless they act within 180 days of the time the disparate pay started -- even if they don't learn until years later that all the male employees holding the same job had been given raises that female employees didn't receive. Ledbetter is in a good position to dramatize a point that needs to be made clearly: Republicans in general, and John McCain in particular, continue their history of hostility to legislation that provides a remedy for gender discrimination.

Obama was an original co-sponsor of the legislation to reverse the result in Ledbetter's case; McCain opposes the bill because, he said in April, it "opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems." Well, yes, that would be the point of a law prohibiting pay discrimination.

As Ruth Marcus writes, Lilly Ledbetter "puts a human face on a pocketbook issue." And it's an issue that tells us a good deal about the values our next president will hold.

More on my theme of the day - Bill Maher on Larry King last night:

KING: So who do you -- who do you handicap? Do you think it's going to be one of these three boring white guys?

MAHER: I do, but I think that's, again, the wrong -- the wrong sort of strategy. At this point I think they need Hillary Clinton. . . . Yes. Look, I may change my mind tomorrow. I've been thinking this way a long time, but I swear to God. Not just because it's bold and they need to show bold, but you know what? I think they need the Clinton ruthlessness onboard. I really do.

I'm beginning to think Bill Clinton is still the only guy in that party who really knows how to do this, as far as talking to the American people, making the counter argument to the Republican arguments that, again, Obama just seems to be cozying up to their way of thinking. . . .

Awakening to the political virtues of Bill and Hillary Clinton? Could it be a trend?

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Sorry to clutter the page this morning, but I have to share this post from Americablog. This passage especially:

[I]f you thought that somehow this year was going to be different - something would change and somehow the American electorate would look completely different this year than any other year, the numbers today just don't show that. This isn't a transformative election, it's another hardscrabble, claw out each and every vote, election. To win that kind of election, you need to fight for every vote and fight hard. That's why you hear the concern you hear from Josh Marshall, John, Joe, etc. And it's backed up by years of experience watching the Republicans make Democrats look weak - Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry [BTD -look what name is missing from that list]. That line of attack works when not countered and we were defeated. None of us want that in 2008.

(Emphasis supplied.) Now they want a fighter?

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only