Good for Obama. He's not running from his early experimentation with drugs, including cocaine, and alcohol. He also says he was a "goof-off."

We've come a long way from the "But I didn't inhale" days.

It's official. The DNCC has announced the hotels the various state delegations will be staying at for the Democrats' convention in August. Here's the list (no link yet, received by e-mail):

STATE/TERRITORY HOTEL
Alabama - Doubletree Denver Stapleton
Alaska - Four Points Sheraton Denver Southeast
American Samoa - Radisson Southeast
Arizona - Hyatt Regency Denver Tech Center
Arkansas - Marriott Denver South at Park Meadows
California - Adam's Mark
Colorado - Grand Hyatt Downtown
Connecticut - Marriott Denver Tech Center
Delaware - Marriott South at Park Meadows
Democrats Abroad - Red Lion Denver Central
District of Columbia - Crowne Plaza, Downtown
Georgia - Doubletree Denver Stapleton
Guam - Sheraton Denver Tech Center
Hawaii - Marriott Denver South at Park Meadows
Idaho - Sheraton Denver Tech Center
Illinois - Marriott City Center, Downtown
Indiana - Sheraton Denver Tech Center
Iowa - Courtyard by Marriott, Downtown
Kansas - Doubletree Denver Tech Center
Kentucky - Hilton Garden Inn, Downtown
Louisiana - Radisson Stapleton Plaza

More...

Bump and Update: An online petition to help the Servanos is here. If you are from Pennsylvania, or neighboring area, please go on over and sign. Also, here's their lawyers' letter (pdf) to Homeland Security.

*****
Original Post: 11/17/07

Meet Pedro and Salvacion Servano, a married Filipino couple who have been in the U.S. for 25 years.

Pedro Servano, 54, is a prominent family doctor in an underserved area of central Pennsylvania. His 51-year-old wife runs a grocery store and bakery..... Pedro Servano works at Geisinger Medical Group in Selinsgrove, where he has about 2,000 patients.

Two of their four children graduated from Temple University, while one is in high school and another is in middle school. Several years ago, the Servanos bought and renovated two properties in nearby Sunbury. Salvacion Servano recently opened a small grocery store there, selling Asian goods and baked items.

More...

Yesterday, I wrote about John Edwards' slippage in Iowa. Normally, I do not take great stock in polls this far out (yes, it is still too far out to take polls too seriously), especially the famously difficult to poll Iowa Caucus. My reasons for thinking the latest Iowa poll was not so much the numbers, as the fact that Edwards has dropped while Obama has risen since the end of July. Edwards now lacks a POSITIVE narrative for his candidacy for the critical last phases of the campaign. He has become the "attack Hillary" candidate (as opposed to being the Not Hillary candidate, the position he has now ceded without a shot to Barack Obama.)

At MYDD, Jerome Armstrong sees it differently:

Chiming in, it's great that the pollsters are now adding whether the voters attended the 2004 caucuses or not . . . I would tend to bank more on those that caucused in '04 . . .

With due respect to Jerome, I think he misses a very important point here, on the night of the caucus, the differences between previous caucus goers and first timers is simply not that great - both in choices and participation. For example, in 2004, the entrance polling showed:

What's the going speaker's rate for a disgraced Bush Administration official? For former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, his talk at the University of Florida yesterday cost the school $40,000.

It probably made the boos and jeers easier to swallow:

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales endured screams of "criminal" and "liar" during a speech at the University of Florida on Monday evening.....Early in his speech, two people climbed on the stage in hoods. Gonzales stopped talking for a few minutes as police led them away without incident, though there were several outbursts from the crowd.

The hooded demonstrators were charged with interruption of a public event, said Steve Orlando, a university spokesman. Several other people were ejected for yelling, and more than a dozen people stood for most of Gonzales' hour-long speech with their backs toward him.

Gonzales must really be hurting for legal fees.

It's time for the Tuesday Open Thread. I've got court and last minute prep to get ready for the TL kid's return to Denver for the holidays.

Here's a place for readers to keep us abreast of the news and to post your thoughts. Please use the buttons on top of the comments box to put your link in html format.

Thanks, and I'll be back soon.

CBS news writers may be the next to strike. Today, they authorized the Writers Guild to call a strike on their behalf.

CBS news writers, graphic artists and other staffers who work for the network's television and radio news operations voted by a wide margin to authorize a strike against their employer, the Writers Guild of America announced today.

Of the 300 employees who cast ballots in last week's special election, 81% backed a labor stoppage to protest working for more than 2 1/2 years without a contract.

Radio would be hit big time:

If a labor stoppage were to occur, all-news radio stations such as Los Angeles' KNX-AM (1070) and KFWB-AM (980), Chicago's WBBM-AM and New York's 1010 WINS and WCBS-AM probably would be the hardest hit, as they would lose the staff that pens their news and headlines.

The tv writers' strike and the Broadway stagehands strike continues.

Michael Vick doesn't face sentencing for his dog-fighting case until December 10. But he decided to start serving the sentence today.

I'm not getting this. Why would he want to serve three weeks in a county jail instead of a federal prison camp? Why does he want to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas in prison? He would likely have gotten a voluntary surrender to the designated institution on December 10, putting the start of his sentence off until January. I don't think it will have a major impact on the sentencing judge, and he's still facing state felony charges.

Maybe he's feeling like he's just wasting time while waiting and would rather get out sooner, even if just by three weeks.

Or could the reason be financial...to make it harder for him to be personally served with lawsuits?

Financial troubles have further sullied Vick's image: He's being sued for more than $4 million by banks claiming he defaulted on loans and might have to repay nearly $20 million in NFL signing bonus money.

Things are looking up for Mitt Romney in New Hampshire.

The WMUR-CNN poll of likely Republican voters conducted by the University of New Hampshire shows Romney with 33 percent support, up from 25 percent in the same poll in September. Giuliani has declined, slipping to 16 percent compared to 24 percent in September.

Giuliani is now third choice among Republicans, behind both Romney and McCain, in that state. The poll results are here (pdf).

I wonder if the Bernie Kerik Indictment had a bigger impact than he expected.

A new WaPo/ABC poll shows Obama gaining supporters from John Edwards:

NET LEANED VOTE: 11/18/07 7/31/07

Barack Obama 30 27

Hillary Clinton 26 26

John Edwards 22 26

Edwards has decided to run a negative campaign filled with personal attacks on Hillary Clinton. If Edwards' goal is to help Obama, his tactics are working well. If he is trying to win, his tactics are disastrous.

BTW, the WaPo story is headlined "Clinton Slips . . " As you can see, it is Edwards who lost support. Clinton's support is exactly the same as this poll showed in late July.

Some may not believe this, but I have been bending over backwards trying to become a solid supporter of Barack Obama. I really do believe he has a bundle of political talent and generally holds sound views on most issues. But as I have written since 2006, he has simply failed to be the type of Democratic politician we need in this political climate (See my many posts on Obama for more detail.)

Recognizing this problem, Matt Yglesias defends Obama:

I also think I should take my hat off to Hillary Clinton's campaign -- I think this has been less a failure on Obama's part, then cleverness on Clinton's. She's managed to position herself on foreign policy issues in a way that signals her differences with Obama very clearly to the tiny community of specialists while completely blurring them to the broader audience of voters. I'm not sure how this can be overcome . .

I am sure how it can be done and should have been done for the past year at least - by leading on the issues NOW. As Markos writes:

I don't know how many times I've written this, and maybe I'm just wasting my time, but rather than talk about leadership, Obama and Clinton could actually shows us what that leadership looks like by fighting to prevent the Senate from capitulating on Iraq.

More.

Minnesota can say goodbye to U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose. She's being transferred to a job at Main Justice in D.C.

Now, how hard was that? Should have been done months ago. Background here.