Obamentum?

McCain's post-convention Palin bounce appears to have vanished, thanks in part to Palin's crashing popularity numbers. The trend is now towards Obama, who has once again pulled into the lead in the electoral vote count.

Palin & White Privilege

Excellent article.

H/T Rob at Newspaper Rock

One Day More...

Total Bastard Theatre

1. Michigan Republicans are planning to challenge voters who have received notices of foreclosure;
2. As Mayor of Greater Wasilla, Sarah Palin proposed to charge rape victims for the rape kits used to investigate their cases;
3. As part of his effort to get away from nasty partisan attacks, John McCain accuses Obama of favoring sex education for kindergartners;
4. Getcher oil for nothin' and yer chicks fer free, and most repulsively;
5. The GOP's shameless branding of 9/11.

Bounce?

Gallup notwithstanding, the GOP Convention appears to have had a lukewarm effect at best. My completely uneducated guess is that most of it can be attributed to increased enthusiasm among the Republican social conservative base over Sarah Palin, though there is scant evidence that they will turn out in numbers anywhere near what George W. Bush got in 2004. To the contrary, there is much to suggest a heavy turnout for Democrats in the fall, particularly in some key states.

More Convention Fun!

1. Obama knows how to defend community organizers!
2. Paging the commander in chief of the Alaskan National Guard!
3. Lindsey Graham occasionally gives the appearance of having a soul. Nice to have him confirm that he's still the same old vicious lying little turd;
4. Jon Stewart dissects the Palin Hypocrisy as only he can;
5. Yeah, media? John McCain? He's just not all that into you anymore. Sorry;
6. Nice to see them finally abandoning all pretense;
7. Would you buy a used moose from this woman?

OBAMAPALOOZA!

It was a good speech. Not a soaring or flowery speech, but then it wasn't intended to be. Obama has shown one of the most important characteristics for a successful candidate: flexibility. Realizing that he hasn't polled well with working-class whites whose primary concern is the economy, he re-tooled his message to focus on precisely those issues. Having a number of working-class white delegates warm-up the crowd was a great touch. Barney Smith for Secretary of Labor! Obama systematically hit every single one of the criticisms that the Republicans have levelled at him--that he's elitist, that he's a celebrity, that he's not "one of us." He hit McCain, though it could be argued not hard enough, while careful to pay tribute to his war hero status, a courtesy certainly not afforded John Kerry by the GOP in 2004. Overall, I was impressed, as I have continued to be impressed (and surprised) by Obama since he first entered the race. I feel much better about November 4 than I did just a few days ago.

Good One, Bill

Excellent speech by Bill, seemingly made point-for-point to refute hyper-technical criticism by the GOP and their lapdogs in the MSM.

PUMA Overload

It's becoming increasingly clear that the "Angry Hillary Supporter" meme is being overhyped and driven primarily by the MSM and the McCain Campaign, as clearly demonstrated by Our Man in Denver, Hilzoy.

UPDATE: Damn good speech, damn good. Of course, the punditocracy is already on about how she didn't go far enough, with one idiot I watched on PBS even saying she should have explicitly taken back everything negative she ever said about Obama. Please. You couldn't ask for a more unequivocal endorsement. If it's not good enough for the MSM, screw 'em. Nothing that might be positive for Democrats will ever be good enough for the corporate MSM. And if it wasn't good enough for the PUMAs, then they were never really Hillary supporters and they aren't really Democrats and to hell with them, too.

Obama Thoughts, Part 3

1. Good piece on Obama's tax policy in particular and how he is hard to pigeon-hole generally.
2. Democrats are apparently planning to fight this time. Good.
3. Good on Hillary.
4. McCain's lobbyist/campaign staffers are scary. If this isn't an issue, it needs to become one. And fast.

Obama Thoughts, Part 2

EJ Dionne says the worst of it is over for Obama, and the "Guess how many houses the Maverick owns" issue may be getting some traction.

Obama Thoughts

Should Obama be less technocrat and more populist? Obviously, I agree (and there is some evidence he is starting to do so); it may be the only way for him to broaden his appeal to working-class whites. Meanwhile, the Georgia Crisis may not be the incredible boost to McCain the MSM seems to think. And, of course, Dubya the Lame Duck continues to screw the environment. And adopt Barack Obama's plan for Iraq. Some legacy.

Not A Bad Idea, Actually

Arianna Huffington suggests Obama turn up the heat on McCain...on national security. She makes a convincing case. National security is the only area where McCain currently and consistently outpolls Obama, yet his pronouncements on the subject have been nothing but one long string of gaffes and misstatements (including most recently plagiarizing from Wikipedia and accusing Putin of wanting to restore the Czarist empire). The only reason McCain has gotten a pass is the MSM's man-crush on him. Obama should call McCain on it. It's a Rovian strategy, hitting your opponent where he's strongest. Maybe it can work for good instead of evil this time.

UPDATE: MSM continues to carry McCain's water on the Russo-Georgian conflict, even as it becomes more and more apparent that he has no idea what he's talking about.

Defining Obama

Some excellent articles on how voters don't know Obama that well (thereby making the election solely about his competence) and the serious danger that McCain will indelibly mark him as a Michael Dukakis/John Kerry elitist early on, with the added bonus of playing into racially-loaded code-memes for "uppity negro." I agree that Obama needs to go on the offensive, and the sooner the better, especially in linking McCain (who still has a residual public image as a "maverick") with the Bush Administration train wreck. He should resist urges to make him look more like a "regular guy." Obama trying to bowl looked exactly like Hillary downing shots: contrived and insincere. Obama is smart; he shouldn't play dumb. The voters can smell a phony coming from a long ways off.

UPDATE: Speaking of "racially-loaded code-memes," Ezra Klein has a great piece on white privilege and white resentment.

Changing the Game

If 2008 is to be the kind of transformative, watershed election the most fervent Obamaphiles promise, the key lies with low-wage workers (currently for him by a 2-1 margin) and the 83 million eligible voters who stayed home in 2004 despite the enormous turnout. And to do that, Obama must make these voters aware that not only is John McCain a Republican, he is a George W. Bush Republican.

Obamccain?

First al-Maliki now McCain? How desperate is your campaign when your friends are trying to claim your Iraq policy is almost kinda like your opponent's?

Just Because You're Paranoid...

That whole domestic spying thing? The one where Congress just totally abjectly caved to the White House? Yeah, turns out it's worse than we thought. Way worse. Senator Obama, is this "egregious" enough for you?

"Winning" the War

How to keep the disaster in Iraq from destroying the GOP? Can't let Obama in the White House; Lord knows what he might find if he goes snooping around. I have it!

1. Announce a "time horizon" for pulling out troops. That's vague enough it sounds like something Steven Hawking would come up with. Plus, when you think about it, you can never really reach the horizon, now can you?
2. Next, trot out a general to dutifully claim with a straight face that "time horizons" = democracy, sunshine, ponies & gumdrops whereas "time lines" = surrender;
3. Wait, crap! That nitwit al-Maliki told some German magazine he wants us out in 16 months!
4. Okay, plan B: bomb Iran.

CAVE-IN!

Congressional Democrats have, for all intents and purposes, completely capitulated to Bush's demands on FISA--his unfettered power to spy on American citizens. The "compromise" not only blesses the President's illegal actions, but also exempts the tele-com Quislings from the inconvenience of having to answer for their actions in court--the ONLY avenue by which the American public could ever have learned who in the government authorized this lawless action in the first place. I suspect, as other commenters have noted, that Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer were motivated by a combination of lust for tele-com campaign contributions and fear that another terrorist attack would be blamed on them; how else to account for abasing themselves to a wildly unpopular lame-duck President in an election year? Even more disappointing is that Barack Obama has signed off on this instrument of surrender.

In an Odd Bit of Synergistic Irony...

...the talk is now about Barack Obama running with Republican Chuck Hagel and John McCain running with (kinda sorta) Democrat Joe Lieberman. There's a certain amount of logic to both choices, in that they would boost each candidate's preferred brand image, Obama as a post-partisan agent of change and McCain as a "maverick" willing to buck the party line. Neither would likely directly affect the electoral landscape in the traditional sense; Nebraska is still likely to go red and Connecticut blue. And there's the risk to both men at the top of the ticket alienating their bases with ideologically "impure" running mates, though this seems less of a risk with Lieberman who is Republican in the only way that counts these days: slavish devotion to George W. Bush and the Iraq War.