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

It seems fair to characterize the Presidential race as too close to call right now based on the recent polling. But I still cling (reference intended) to the underlying dynamics being incredibly favorable to Democrats and Barack Obama. George W. Bush remains our ace in the hole. This is still Obama's contest to lose, even though he seems to be doing his damnedest to lose it. So what now? Well, first and foremost, I hope and think that every one has learned their lesson that "hope" and "change" and "ground game" and "50 state strategy" are all nice words, but do not translate into an easy win, even in this favorable climate. The Obama campaign has to dig in and fight the fight.

More . . .

Update [2008-8-20 10:4:28 by Big Tent Democrat]: Battleground Poll has McCain by 1, 47-46.

Boy, is John Zogby shameless. He'll massage his numbers anyway he can to get attention. And he does so in his latest Presidential poll:

In a sharp turnaround, Republican John McCain has opened a 5-point lead on Democrat Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential race and is seen as a stronger manager of the economy, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

McCain leads Obama among likely U.S. voters by 46 percent to 41 percent, wiping out Obama's solid 7-point advantage in July and taking his first lead in the monthly Reuters/Zogby poll.

Obviously, the race has tightened, but Zogby needs some attention so he releases this. The man is a charlatan, not a pollster.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Since i won't be around if Sen. Barack Obama texts out his veep choice early this morning, here's a place to discuss it -- or any other topic that's on your mind.

The LA Times reports that the feds are investigating LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and his wife. The lengthy article doesn't mention that Rocky Delgadillo was the city attorney who insisted on hammering Paris Hilton, notwithstanding parallel conduct by his wife. But I did back when Paris was in the news:

Paris was sentenced for a probation violation for driving under suspension while on probation. Mrs. Delgadillo also drove under suspension and committed a traffic offense while doing so. She was not charged with driving under suspension, only the traffic offense, and was fined $186.00.

Paris got 23 days in jail for driving under suspension which was a violation of her probation. She wasn't charged or convicted of any traffic offense-- or of drunk driving-- on that occasion. She didn't cause an accident. Her only drunk driving charge was the one that led to her original term of probation. As I wrote here: [More...]

Having been joined now by a chorus of Obama blogs in concern with Obama's post partisan unity schtick campaign, I am somewhat amused that no one noticed the problem before. TPM has been on it all day but this e-mail Marshall posts got my attention:

Obama needs to own the branding of John McCain, the man. . . . To that end, I think the essence of Obama's campaign needs to be "John McCain will do anything to get elected."

Obama has experience in that message no doubt ("Hillary will say or do anything to get elected") but it won't work on McCain because the Media will not play along. The problem is Obama has never gone after Republicans and specifically tied them to Bush (he of the 25% approval rating.) People are making this more complicated than it is. All you have to send as a message is not MCCain - flip flopper or anything like that, you say McCain - Bush's third term. Period, That is the negative branding that should be driven home every single day. That should be Obama's message every single day. But Dems don't do negative branding, they just get branded. I wrote about this when I was ripping into Lakoff back in 2006: