Not that my opinion counts for much, but I think of it more like this:
"Rust Belt": Ohio, Penn, Ind, Mich
Tossup: Illinois
"Midwest/Plains": Dakotas, Neb, Kan, Mizzou, Iowa, Minn, Wisc
Oklahoma falls to the "Southwest" along with Texas, NM, and AZ

But they could all be the midwest, for the matter, except maybe Pennsylvania

SI

Frankly, Biden is the strongest move I have seen Obama make. Every other thing the man has done is fluff, words, nothing and a whole lot of media glitz too ready to hand him the crown.

The Biden choice is the first one the Obama campaign made that has teeth both now and after the election. And the first move I at least can attach some approval of, for his foreign policy experience, if nothing else.

Agreed. The Democrats ran on this main premise 4 years ago. They're evidently deciding to stick with it this year. At some point, they've got to stop using guilt by association and start telling the independent and swing voters why they're the candidates of change rather than the best of two evils.


If Obama loses this election, I don't have any doubt that Hillary will be the Dems candidate in 2012. I mentioned that the Clinton camp appears to be setting her up for that option and this move only furthers that. I mentioned that earlier in this thread. They're steering clear of outright endorsement of Obama right now so they're hands are clean in 2012.

This has become a bit laughable. I was just pointing out that there are many people, for better or worse, in the different regions that lump people into regional bias. Who knew that was so controversial?

Im sure they'll change the message when the message stops working. So far, even McCain has tried to campaign on a message that he's different than Bush too. So obviously the experts disagree with you in so much as apparently now is not the time to stray from the message of, "we will not be like Bush."

I like the choice of Biden.

I think the demographics that he appeals to (Catholics and seniors, in particular) will be helpful in states like PA (I actually think he removes PA from "swing state" status), OH, VA, NH, and probably FL.

As far as long-time politicians go, he appears to be squeaky clean with his only mis-steps having had taken place 20+ years ago. And, if folks want to make things that happened 20+ years ago fair game, the Keating Five and McCain affair become fair game (both of which are light years worse than Biden's plagiarisms, in my opinion).

I think McCain now has a fascinating decision on his hands because, the more I think about it, Mitt Romney's ability to help deliver two key swing states (CO and NV) could really, really help McCain, as could his economic and fund-raising stature (although the pairing of two guys worth over $100M each might not play well). I think some of the Southern and hardcore Christian voters may not like the choice of Romney, but I doubt his inclusion would make them vote for Obama. I don't think McCain personally likes Romney, but I think he has more of a dedicated national following than any of the other pro-life candidates being talked about.

When did it work? The Democrats lost the 2004 election. They ran on the 'not another Bush' premise in 2000. The Democrats have gone from having an 2008 election that they should easily win to a dead heat. The vast majority of people that respond to that message voted for Kerry and are going to vote for Obama. I don't disagree that it's good when talking to the Dem base, but I'm not sure it's a winning election strategy. You couldn't find a Republican voter right now that wouldn't tell you that they're shocked that Obama doesn't have this wrapped up by now.

Has there ever been a Republican ticket that hasn't been painted as a rich elitist by the Democrats? Certainly not in my lifetime. Even Bob Dole from Kansas got painted as elite because of his Washington connections and his successful wife. I really don't think his wealth will play a factor in regards to a selection.

I still think this election will be close, but don't you think running against someone with a roughly 30% approval rating will have a better chance of success than when he had a roughly 45% approval rating?

The real question is whether Obama can successfully attach McCain to Bush.

the latest elections, the ones that happened most recently, the ones where the status quo sic. Bush affiliated people (whether appropriate or not) got hammered.

You'll also be hard pressed to find a Republican, outside of the stalwarts that still supports Bush, his legacy, or wants things to remain the same. Even some of the most ardent Bush supporters of the past have switched allegiances, no offense intended to those who have since I see them as finally seeing the light.

The Democrats have obviously switched to that tactic at this point after the polling numbers turned south. They certainly want to make it all about Bush. As I stated, IMO, it's not a winning formula. I totally agree that it's all about if they can truly create a connection that will resonate with all voters, not just the Dem voting base.

Well its your opinion certainly but the last elections showed that the masses opinion, at that time (a whopping 2 years ago), were in stark contrast to yours.

I was tired of intelligence, balanced political furor here and so I decided to post on DailyKos for once.

Daily Kos: Your message is currency

It wasn't a troll post, either. I was just talking to a friend about it this afternoon and decided to rant about it. We'll see how it goes...

Folks over there are funny. Disagree with the company line and they just show up to skewer. Makes what we do here seem a lot more civil in comparison.

Faux News reporter wades into protest march in Denver. Hilarity (and NSFW audio) ensues from about 1:40 on.

Although, tell me: are we really supposed to take "Griff Jenkins" seriously? He's been airlifted from the 50s, man.

I gotta say, those groups represented themselves and their message really well. That'll show Fox News.

Once you wade into the diaries/comments it's a free for all with a lot of unpleasant folks. I'll read the front page fairly regularly, but it's just too much trouble to sort out anything worthwhile in the diaries. It's like that on both sides though, as places like LGF are just as full of idiots.

Seems like one expecting articulate discourse in the middle of a screaming protest march may find more fertile ground elsewhere. Mostly I enjoyed the crowd broadcasting their unanimous message over the very airwaves they curse as it's carried interminably long. Star corporate media indeed. :)

Oh yeah, I know the right wing sites as crazyland. Good to know that it goes both ways. I was just messing around, my piece wasn't all that fleshed out. I should've mentioned that I'm a lot more independent than the one I wrote implied. It wouldn't have mattered to them, but...that's precisely the point. If Obama is trying to appeal to indies, these are things that indies might be thinking.

But I guess I can't expect "netroots" to care about that stuff.

It was fun, anyway.

There's a big difference between offering articulate discourse and simply stating your message before a television audience.

Fox News were not looking for "articulate discourse". Indeed, had they got that the story would never have made it on air. But they did get what they were looking for - the opportunity to depict (all) Democrat voters as inarticulate rabble.

I've still heard nothing to explain the Mayberry starch of Griff Jenkins. I want answers.

+1

And here I was arguing that liberals were too divisive and more concerned about confrontation and insults than any kind of productive change. I'm sure they changed a lot of minds out there. Bravo.

"Liberal Rallies" tend to attract 20-something stoners who aren't that into politics but know that "Bush sucks". Not representative of all Democrats, of course. But representative of something.

The need to raise the voting age perhaps.

These are disaffected stoners looking for a good time. Going to Denver beats working this week.

With Fox, though, there are very few minds to change. In the 2004 election "Fox Viewer" was a more reliable Bush vote than Republican, Conservative or even Evangelical.

A senate/house election is much more based on regional politics than George Bush's rating. Perfect example was Missouri. McCaskill got on mostly due to the screw-ups of the Republican governor and incumbant senator than anything having to do with Bush. Their screw-ups had nothing to do with their support/non-support of Bush's policies.

LOL, mmmmmk

JiMGA made me lol.

LOL. That would make things 100x worse.

As a moderate independent who leans conservative on economic issues and leans liberal on social issues, I don't mind the Biden pick as a VP choice. Prior to the VP choices, I felt I had already decided that I likely was going to vote for Obama pending any changes based on stances (or lack there of) taken on various issues over the next couple of months.

His choosing Biden doesn't really bother me that much as an independant voter. I fully realize that no matter how much "change" is called for, or how much a candidate tries to be the Washington outsider, if you try to fully go full bore Washington-outsider, you will repeat some of the same problems from the Jimmy Carter administration.

I briefly had some hope that Sam Nunn would have been chosen, as that would have virtually locked in my vote for him, but I do also realize that is probably more due to Nunn having been an absolutely outstanding senator from when I lived in Georgia. I know he probably didn't have the national level of appeal that a Biden has to the same effect however.

I'm not flat rulling out voting for Mccain at this point, but I do feel that Obama will have to "lose" this election for me, but I can absolutely say if Mccain picks Romney as his running mate, that could pretty close to come as a lock for me to not voting for Mccain this time around. Perhaps it is just my bad experience with Romney in Massachusetts or my bad experience with Gore as senator from Tennessee, but Romney just reminds me of the Republican version of Al Gore, whom I or any of my family from Tennessee absolutely refused to vote for any any form or function. Unfortunately in hindsight this probably was just a case of me forgetting that the majority of politicians are flipflopping backstabbing windtunnels and it is not just limited to Gore and Romney though.

Oh, and I've never heard of anything south of Connecticut considered "New England" ever. There are two non-interchangable geographical areas that I guess some of the forum posters here are confusing. New England does not equal the Northeast United States.

LOL.....let's make this clear once again. There are a lot of people west of the Mississippi that lump the two regions in as the same thing, mostly due to political leanings. No one on this forum is confusing anything. Most people on this forum don't fall into that category because I'm pretty sure that posters on this forum are smarter than the average citizen.

McCaskill was elected because of Bush. Matt Blunt and Talent were not the main reasons for her election. It was a referandum on Bush and the national Republican party.

Why woudln't you vote for Barr then? How does Obama satisfy your economic values at all?

I don't tend to vote for third party candidates, call it ignorance on my part or a failure of the current election system, but I just feel doing so often accomplishes two things: 1) Putting my vote on someone who has no chance of winning and 2) removing my vote from a candidate that does have a chance of winning whom I would rather see in office than option B.

I would have to guess that I am not alone in that feeling, but I guess the past 12 years I have lived in two states that every election was pretty much decided for the electoral college well before the actual voting day (Texas and Massachusetts), but I try to draw my line of voting apathy at that as I make sure to always put my vote in each election, even if my presidental vote has not made a difference once since I became old enough to vote.

I totally understand, and the great majority of US voters agree with you, but just to throw in my 2 cents on 3rd party candidates-

I guarantee your vote won't ever swing the election - even if you lived in Ohio or Florida. It's never going to happen. So why vote strategically? Why don't you just exercise this right the way it was intended - to vote for the candidate you'd think would do the best job, or the candidate whose views are most similar to your own?

Well, to be honest, can't every person alive say this exact same thing? I mean, we have never had a state grant its electors (or even one elector) to one candidate over another due to a one vote margin.

You are probably correct that my two points contradict each other. I guess that is what happens when you let emotions get involved. :) Don't get me wrong, I am definitely not saying what people -should- do, just how things have shook out for me as I honestly feel that I probably fall in the moderate independant voter that both candidates must have in order to win the election. There seems to be a bunch of posturing about what the "middle" feel from both sides (the right and the left), so I was simply saying what this "middle" person feels :)

Couldn't disagree more. She targeted both of them for their lack of leadership from the very start. I'm not a fan of McCaskill, but I can't say I disagree that both of them lacked the leadership qualities needed for the job. Talent and 'Skippy' both had no one to blame but themselves.

Sounds like Ted Kennedy was able to make it to Denver and will be in the house tonight for the tribute. Nice touch by the party.

I guess that is true, and maybe I am just remembering things back in my days living in Georgia with some revisionist history for some reason, but I honestly felt in Georgia every state election, for senators, governor, state rep seats, etc all were pretty hotly contested, and we ended up with split senators as well as neighboring districts often having opposing party representatives.

Technically even then the single vote didn't swing an election, but it just felt to me that things were at least undecided and it was more important to get out there and vote. When I lived in Texas everything was such a Republican slant, and in Massachusetts everything is such a Democrat slant, it just feels completely different.


Maybe I am just older and more cynical now, or it is the internet and news media outlets that make everything much more spelled out well in advance than it used to be.. it just feels less important now is all. :)

Sometimes the "best job" is defined by "least worst". When you're pretty certain to be unhappy with all of the options when the day is done, there seems like a pretty good case to be made for voting in a way that does the most to prevent the candidate you're sure to be unhappiest with from winning.

I have held "independent" views for a while now and until recently had voted with the "lesser of two evils/3rd party vote is a waste" mindset. But I heard a Liberterian canidate put in best about the wasted vote theory.

If I vote Obama mostly because I don't like McCain and don't like the current system or I vote for McCain mostly because I don't like Obama and the current system then I am really voting to continue the current system which is exactly the opposite of my stated reason for my vote.

That's why I love living in a swing state. It's always fun to vote knowing that you could play an important part in deciding the next President. The local races are often just as tight.

Refresh my memory, you were here from when to when again?

Only in the past decade has the governor's race been competitive, 1980 was the first GOP Senator in Georgia since the Reconstruction era, as late as 1988 the state had only one GOP Rep in Washington, and the real breakthrough in the state legislature didn't occur until 1992.

Pretty thorough recap of their sad history in the state (surprisingly candid about how bad it was) can be found here.

Absolutely, if it were remotely possible that your one vote could actually prevent anything. (Which is I guess conceivable, though extremely unlikely, on a local level, but completely impossible on a national level)

True dat. Ultimately I think a lot of votes are largely psychological in nature, specifically hoping to avoid a feeling of blame if things don't go the way you want. You can at least say to yourself "I tried" or even "it's not my fault".

I believe Mack Mattingly and Nunn were my two senators when I first started following politics. Even then though, half of the democrats that ran in Georgia were technically conservative democrats that seemed more conservative than some of the republicans who ran. At least based on my memory, it felt to me that the majority of the mainstream Georgia candidates were fairly moderate on either sides of the aisle.

I don't really remember a Republican gov. while there, but for some reason I thought I remembered there being some close competition for it. I thought for some reason it wasn't a sure thing initially that Zell Miller was going to get it or such. For local representatives I was in Buddy Darden's district until they did that huge redrawing of districs that ended up dumping me into Newt Gingrich's district. I still don't understand how an area that had voted democrat for quite a while suddenly had one of the most conservative representatives in the state, but oh well. :)

Good point - it's really all psychological no matter what, so it's just a choice whether to feel that you "voted for X in '08", or you "voted against X in '08" and both are completely legitimate, as it's your vote. It kind of creates a personal identity and history, even if neither have any practical impact.

Zell won by just over 2% against Guy Milner in 1994.

Good catch, although that's the only close call between the 70's & Perdue (and the 70's is me being generous to Hal Suit's 60-40 loss to Carter).

Meanwhile, I hadn't thought about Buddy Darden in a while. For those who don't have the foggiest who we're talking about, he first went to Congress to fill the unexpired term of Larry McDonald who died in the KAL Flight 007 shootdown. He then served five more terms in the House before losing to Bob Barr.

And on the point about the conservative nature of that district (both before & after redistricting), consider that McDonald was a Democrat who was also the President of the John Birch Society while serving in Congress.

Pretty interesting trip down memory lane there (for me at least), and a real reminder of why I don't mind admitting that I used to be a (D) and am not one anyone.

You won't give the third parties a chance to build support and get regular ballot access unless we give them the votes to do so. We'll just have the same two party system unless we change. One should vote for the best candidate, not the "lesser than the two parties". Massachusetts is a becoming a pretty interesting state with the moderation of some of the economic policies (just think if the proposition gets passed to repeal state income and capital gain, which I don't think it will) and increasing wealth in Boston. I've read some place that Massachusetts has a growing 5-6% Libertarian base? However, Barr is not on the ballot at this point in the state. I guess they are suing for access.

So, what the fuck is wrong with the women in comfortable shoes in Hilaries posse that can't get over their girl losing? Now since they didn't get their way they are going to pout and vote fro McCain? This is why the damn Dem party is so screwed up. They just can get all their disparate parts to compromise in order to beat the Repubs. If Clintons pissed off disciples screw this up and McCain gets elcted because of it I will chnage my party status to the Republicans next election for good. Who the hell would want these bickering bozos runningthe government they can't even run a party. So disgusting.

I loved Biden calling McCain privileged. Pot, kettle. Like anybody involved in this race actually shops for their own groceries...

Well you should. Any conservative economic policy by definition dictates reducing government debt and spending. Unfortunately, Biden is one of the more hawkish Senators and has never seen an American intervention he didn't support. It's kind of hard to hold down spending while doling out military contracts to anyone who's ever donated to your campaign.

In terms of social issues, Biden's been one of the biggest proponents of the War on Drugs, a program I'll leave for others to analyze should they wish. he's also an unabashed racist, giving a public eulogy for Strom Thurmond earlier this year.

Other than that though, great choice.

But how many would actually vote for McCain vs how many just won't bother at all?

Oddly, it's a similar scenario that McCain faced right up until Obama got the nomination. I can't say I've heard anybody say "doesn't really matter" since then.

And I can't help but chuckle a little (at myself included) at how the worst possible imaginable scenario ("President Hillary") was suddenly dramatically less unthinkable with the lukewarm feeling McCain inspired ... until a far worse scenario popped up.

If the D's lose, it won't be because Hillary's supporters stayed home, it'll be because they managed to present a candidate the R's wanted to defeat far more. Clinton would have cakewalked past McCain if she had survived the battle with Obama, not a landslide mind you, but a relatively easy 55-45 type win. Instead, the D's opted to run a candidate that would have me willing to get off my deathbed to vote for McCain even though I don't think he's worth a bucket of warm spit.

Im sorry but that's doesn't make any sense to do.

Sure it does ... just so long as you consider the alternative far worse than the aforementioned bucket of warm spit.

And lest anybody think I'm trying to be all partisan & stuff in an otherwise relatively discussion oriented thread, it's easy enough to flip the script & create the same dynamic. An Obama supporter might not have given a flip whether Hillary or McCain won in November ... unless (just say) Huckaby or Romney had managed to get the nomination instead. At that point it's easy enough to see them having a whole different view of the importance in getting Hillary elected.

It's pretty easy to stay home if you're "meh" about both choices. But if one you consider one of the choices unspeakably bad then it puts the other in a completely different light.

In the past, candidates have averaged a 5-point bounce after naming their VP running mate, but Obama got no bounce whatsoever, and he is in a statistical dead heat with McCain on the first day of the Democratic Convention.

I'm not sure you'll be able to isolate any VP bounce this year as both picks will far closer to the convention than is normal. I think the real measure will be Friday or Saturday's numbers. If those are flat and if it isn't delayed a few days that could be a problem. Honestly I don't think we can look at the numbers and make any judgments until the at least a week after the Republican convention. The compression of major events is unprecedented and I don't think you can assume the same bounces in this case.

You make some good points; however, I've seen enough election cycles to know that given the horrible state of the economy and the public's weariness of the Iraq war, the generic democratic candidate should be well ahead of the generic republican candidate at this point.

Do you have any clue whatsoever as to the relative wealth of McCain and Biden? It does not appear so....

I assume that gstelmack's 'rich' line is lower than $5 million hence his stance.

That's a good point. I read it to mean that if Obama were to win, it would be a strong affirmation of the Democratic Party platform. Because, as you have pointed out, the personalities involved give McCain a 5-10 point edge.

I'll give you that.

I'll go out on the line and predict a 3-4 point bump by the weekend offset by enough of a bump at the end of next week to have McCain up a point or two. State polls will remain basically unchanged, but safe states will shift even safer. All in all we'll be in the same place in two and half weeks that we're in today. The deabtes are going to be the deciding factor.

Should I base my vote on who the poorest candidate is? Poorest average net worth across the ticket? That seems to be what the Dems are arguing but I can't say I'm convinced.

It's like McCain's people arguing that Obama is too popular, filling up stadiums an so forth.

Isn't being successful in life, or being popular good things?

Will Mary Jo Kopeckny also be making an appearance? Makes you wonder what kind of tribute she'd have for ol Teddy. :D

If you're right, then it's over & Obama wins going away (barring him suddenly being afflicted with some sort of ill-timed bizarre mental breakdown that turns him into Jim Carey). I'm not sure McCain could debate a mannequin & win decisively.

For McCain to have a chance in November, he has to make sure that he doesn't completely meltdown during the debates & then win on message in the media & in the ads.

I wouldn't willingly vote for either of them...but in my book, McCain is the lesser of two evils.

Actually, McCain seems to do better with unscripted stuff. When he delivers prepared speeches...OMG.

Obama does charismatic speeches but starts sputtering and stammering and saying really unintelligent sounding bites when things get off script.

We are in agreement, you shouldnt base your vote on one aspect only, say like, abortion rights...

Fuck me, we agree too. I just looked and it hasn't frozen over outside either, weird day.

...don't. I also throw in things like taxes, environmental wackism, income redistribution, etc., etc., etc.

Unfortunately for him "better" is relative. He has a knack for sounding briefly like he knows what he's talking about off the cuff but in reality ... sigh. That's a weakness that I felt strongly led to the whole how-many-house gaffe, I'd bet somebody has made him paranoid about getting something simple like that wrong & he froze because of it.


I have every anticipation of him being so rehearsed for these that it'll take a real unexpected moment for him to get too far out of sorts. If it happens, I think that would tell me a lot about the (lack of) quality of his handlers, even more than it would say about him.

I mentioned this up the thread many pages ago I think but I'll say it again: at this stage of the game, I'm impressed that either candidate can remember their own name much less be letter perfect during even a short burst.

Well that's good. I wish more Americans would look at ALL facets before voting instead of just hanging there hat on the easy targeted sound bites and spin, like Abortion rights, Gay marriage rights, Immigration reform, etc. etc.

Jon, we agree again to your point that at this point they must have so much shit in their heads and so many people pulling at them for 20 hours a day that it's a wonder that someone doesnt have a breakdown.

There's no question about that. McCain has actually done very well in his prior debates. He is absolutely horrible when he is trying to read a prepared speech from a teleprompter.

He's gotten better at prepared stuff since switching teams. That speech in front of the green background was one of the worst I've seen from a prominent politician.

Luke Russert doesn't do a bad job.

MSNBC coverage is just theatre. The interplay between Olbermann and Matthews is hilarious. Sooo awkward.

[quote=Dark Cloud;1815588 The interplay between Olbermann and Matthews is hilarious. [/QUOTE]

The state of Colorado is not big enough for both of their egos.

This speech is annoying and personally I find it tacky that they have a black speaker trying to sound like MLK and Co. did.

Michelle Obama's Monday night keynote is coming on now.

It's been a while since I've agreed with Carville, but this has been a truly craptacular waste of a first night. Maybe we can get another ten minute cover band remix before Michelle takes the stage.

MSNBC's coverage has been really strange too. Clearly they're working the kinks out. Well that and you can tell that none of them like Chris Matthews. It's hilarious. He does whatever he wants.

Wonder how well this will go for her. She seems really nervous and you can immediately tell that the teleprompter thing is awkward so far...should be interesting how it evolves.

I gotta say. Seeing Biden up there as the running mate, I take back the stuff I said. He looks like he's raring to kick some ass and that's really what Obama needed was like a super surrogate to put a foot in someone's ass where no one else could before.

So Cindy McCain is going to Georgia and meeting with the President? I can only imagine the outrage if Michelle Obama did the same thing.

Man...that's...just rich.

Is she gonna sell him drugs? I mean, really? What the hell are they gonna talk about it?

Ok, ok. I'm over it.

Juan Williams is crying on FOX News right now. Brit Hume has NO idea how to handle it, but he's asking Juan Williams to speak for all of black America.

It was good for what it was... but they had a chance to draw the line a lot clearer then they did between Obama and McCain, and in that at least, I don't think you can consider day 1 a success by any means.

The critics will say that they weren't mean enough, or at least that's what im gathering but Im glad they didnt go with the divisive tactics today on the day where Ted Kennedy gave it his all to get up there. Eh, I thought the speech by MO was good, I thought Pelosi struggled and missed, and I thought the Kennedy stuff was heart warming...

I caught the end of Michelle Obama's speech and thought it was pretty good. I heard she had some rough sailing at the beginning but became more comfortable as she went on, which I think is to expected given the fact that she's speaking in front of a very large crowd.

Well done by MO.

Oh yeah, forgot about Pelosi. She looked really awkward.

She's just pissed no one is buying her book.

Does anyone else think the whole presidential election process is a huge slap in the face to the voters? Regardless of your choice of Coke or Pepsi? Thank heavens the president is only a figurehead...

4 more years of Dick Cheney? Status Quo FTW! :)

Agreed. Her speaking skills are terrible.

Did anyone else stay awake to watch Larry King Live after the speeches? He had 4 Republicans on the show. I wasn't really crazy about most of them, but Ben Stein made a lot of good points during the show and was much more level-headed with his comments than the others on the panel.

He noted that while the Pelosi delivery style was terrible, that she had some great attacking points on McCain's economic policies. He mentioned that he was shocked that the Democrats are spending more time attacking the Bush/McCain angle when they have a much better case against McCain if they just keep attacking the economic policies.

Another good point made was that there was no further clarification on how 'change' would be initiated, only that there would be change. Pelosi had a great opportunity to clarify how Congress would assist Obama as president, but she chose a more attacking tone to her speech against McCain. He believes it was an opportunity missed.

He also talked about the arrangement of the speakers and how it really detracted from the overall flow of the first night. He noted that the Ted Kennedy appearance, while it was a great emotional moment, provided a premature high point to the evening. As a result, Michele Obama's speech felt anti-climatic because the previous emotional high couldn't be matched.

Meh. Biden isn't trying to be the dark overlord, just super Secretary of State.

What do you want? IRV? Proportional Representation? A prime minister?

As long as Pelosi didn't say we should all bow to Master Satan she's fine. Nobody was watching her and nobody will be talking about her today.

I thought the bigger problem with the Kennedy speech was that it was pre-network. It would have been much stronger to start with Kennedy instead of Leach. Of course I thought the theatrics and messaging were off all night long.

Oh yeah, Stein's still an asshole.

I doubt that Obama did himself any favors here in KC when he sat in a living room in KC and stated that he was in St. Louis. Nevermind the fact that there were no less than 3 prompting cards around the room with the words 'Kansas City' on them. That's the same as sitting in a house in Boston and stating you're in New York City.