All this convention agenda information has me far more upset than a 3 pt. difference in one state poll.

Colorado is far more than Denver, Boulder, Aspen and Telluride.

One reason the Dems need to win here is to get Mark Udall into the Senate. That would give us two Democratic Senators. I'd also like to see Jared Polis win Udall's house seat.

We have 19 ballot initiatives, including the "personhood" amendment that will bring the radical right out in force to vote in November.

Also, they have allowed McCain to look more like someone who is down with the people than Obama. His campaign's approach of generating publicity with big media events worked well in the primaries, because it is a series of events, and it was a good match. But it is no longer working, and they seemed slow to realize that.

Meanwhile John McCain is starting wars and running on a platform of promising bottled hot water to dehydrated babies.

This suggestion is totally out there, but it was born from audacity: Obama could be the ultimate "different kind of politician" if... he... stepped aside, agreed to be Hillary's veep, told his followers she is the true nominee of the Democratic voters.

At some point, it has to come down to one basic truth: he can't win on his own merits, and the only person who could probably help is the person he seems bound and determined not to choose: Hillary.

What has bothered me is that even granting the "he's winning" arguments, is that the margin of his lead is so small in a contest that is clearly overwhelmingly advantageous to the Democrats. And it also bothers me that he is running such a conventional Democratic-style campaign, when an agressive challenge seems warranted.

the Obama campaign decision

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/08/obama_to_genera/

The only way the Democrats can prevail in the fall is with a unity ticket where Hillary is in the top spot and Obama is the VP.  That will unite the two factions of the Democratic base and allow for Hillary to poach moderate suburban Republican women.  

Dean's dream of a 50 state strategy needs a lot more ground work.  This election cycle was not a good time to test a theory.  We have taken an almost sure victory and turned it into a nailbiter- with the help of the media, regardless of Obama's status.  

The only way the Democrats can prevail in the fall is with a unity ticket where Hillary is in the top spot and Obama is the VP.  That will unite the two factions of the Democratic base and allow for Hillary to poach moderate suburban Republican women.  

Dean's dream of a 50 state strategy needs a lot more ground work.  This election cycle was not a good time to test a theory.  We have taken an almost sure victory and turned it into a nailbiter- with the help of the media, regardless of Obama's status.  

"But McCain currently has an even larger, 8 percentage point advantage on one of the poll's key follow-up questions, asking respondents to say which candidate "shares your values."

Frankly, knowing the political culture of these states, I have never thought Obama's chances against McCain in McCain's home territory were quite as rosy as his supporters keep projecting -- and never thought much of the reasoning their rosy projections were based on (that, unlike they had done with any Democrat in the past -- or would do for Hillary -- right leaning independents and Republicans would cross over, in significant numbers, to vote for Obama). Anything is possible, of course -- all my relatives will vote for Obama. But they always vote Democratic.

Colorado -- McCain +0.5

Virginia -- McCain +0.6

Missouri -- McCain +2.3

Michigan -- Obama +3.2

Ohio -- Obama +0.5

What we're seeing is the electoral map slowly morphing into its old form, and a candidate who's not fighting back hard enough (paging John Kerry), largely because he's never faced a really tough Republican opponent, and refuses to make the obvious VP pick (Clinton).

My VERY white, VERY evangelical, VERY Rush-Republican friend told me last year she was going to look at Obama - especially if McCain were nominated - and so were many of her church friends.  They loved his 2004 speech.  They're tired of the war, pro-environment, and were excited about Obama's open religiosity.  

She won't now but not because of racism.  Because she took that look and didn't like what she saw.

For people out here, being self-reliant is a tenet of faith.  You're judged on your character, the company you keep, and your merits.  Unfortunately, a lot of people do consider your church to be a measure of your character and I'll give you that point.  But that's not racism.  

For many of my Republican friends, Colin Powell was too moderate but they love Condi.

I wish people in the blue states would stop the meme that Americans in flyover country are rubes.

The party isn't doomed because Obama isn't doing things YOUR way, but keep telling yourself that. I had hoped the unique focus on crime that Talk Left offered would be enough to keep this site from becoming a "Bitter Knitter" parody sprung to life, but that's not happening. You attack those you disagree with and beat the dead horse so much that that the ashes have long since blown away with the wind. Shame, because the group of commenters have destroyed what was a great site that spotlighted an important facet of democracy.

I think Obama wins in a walk regardless of VP, but that isn't really important. That's just my opinion. You are entitled to disagree. It's just a shame you couldn't do so without the petty snark playground mentality. I had genuine hopes for unity because I still believe, and especially after watching McCain kill "The Maverick" for good on Rick Warren's stage tonight, that it was important to set our differences aside and focus on what we have in common in order to ensure we don't suffer through a McCain presidency. But it is clear that I will have to go else where for that kind of talk. Watching the Republican playbook unfold in these comments has been sad. I don't believe Jeralyn or BTD intended to see things devolve this way and it is shame it did. I remained a lurker for a long time before I decided to dive in, and that is a decision I regret. I can't recall a more bitter, unfriendly group. And I suppose that is precisely why I am leaving. There are plenty of sites that are focusing on taking back the country from the hands of criminals. It used to be this was one of those places.

So cue up the snark and bitterness, then delete and call me a troll. I don't care, because I'm off to places where every other comment isn't slamming Obama and bemoaning the fall of the party because Hillary didn't win.

Oh and this is the part where you accuse me of hating women I guess.

I'm gone, but I doubt I will be the only one leaving as this continues is regrettable slide.

McCain has a problem that he can't do anything about, I think. ;-)

Princeton psychologist Alexander Todorov has demonstrated that quick facial judgments can accurately predict real-world election returns. Todorov has taken some of his previous research that showed that people unconsciously judge the competence of an unfamiliar face within a tenth of a second, and he has moved it to the political arena.

His lab tests show that a rapid appraisal of the relative competence of two candidates' faces was sufficient to predict the winner in about 70 percent of the races for U.S. senator and state governor in the 2006 elections.

"We never told our test subjects they were looking at candidates for political office -- we only asked them to make a gut reaction response as to which unfamiliar face appeared more competent," said Todorov, an assistant professor of psychology and public affairs.
...
What was unknown to the participants in the third experiment was that the image pairs were actually the photographs of the two frontrunner candidates for a major election being held somewhere in the United States during the time of the experiment in late 2006. The races were either for state governor or for a seat in the U.S. Senate. In cases where an observer recognized either of the two faces, the researchers removed the selection from the data.

Two weeks later elections were held, and the researchers compared the competency judgments with the election results. They found that the judgments predicted the winners in 72.4 percent of the senatorial races and 68.6 percent of the gubernatorial races.