Clinton Backers Reject Party Unity

Hillary Clinton made a powerful case for Barack Obama and Democratic Party unity in her address last night to convention delegates at Denver's Pepsi Center.

Yet supporters of Senator Clinton, arguably the most important Democratic constituency in the country right now, remain uncommited to electing Barack Obama to the White House in November.

Here's the Washington Post's report:

Hillary Rodham Clinton's most loyal delegates came to the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night looking for direction. They listened, rapt, to a 20-minute speech that many proclaimed the best she had ever delivered, hoping her words could somehow unwind a year of tension in the Democratic Party. But when Clinton stepped off the stage and the standing ovation faded into silence, many of her supporters were left with a sobering realization: Even a tremendous speech couldn't erase their frustrations.

Despite Clinton's plea for Democrats to unite, her delegates remained divided as to how they should proceed.

The New York Times confirms the disunity, "Some Clinton Fund-Raisers Are Still Simmering":

A significant number of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s top fund-raisers remain on the sidelines and unwilling to work for Senator Barack Obama, a nettlesome problem that appears to be contributing to the campaign’s failure to keep pace with ambitious fund-raising goals it set for the general election.

The lingering rancor between the sides appears to have intensified at the Democratic convention, with grousing from some Clinton fund-raisers about the way they are being treated by the Obama campaign in terms of hotel rooms, credentials and the like. Tensions were already high, particularly in the wake of revelations that Mr. Obama did not vet Mrs. Clinton or ask her advice on his vice-presidential pick.

Many major Clinton fund-raisers skipped the convention; others are leaving Wednesday, before Mr. Obama’s speech.

More broadly, a consensus appears to have emerged among many major Clinton donors that the Obama campaign did not do enough to enlist their support, according to interviews with more than a half-dozen Clinton fund-raisers.

Gallup explains Democratic Party elusiveness as resulting from the defections of conservatives Democrats:

Barack Obama has been struggling to maintain his Democratic base thus far in August, and according to weekly averages of Gallup Poll Daily tracking, the problem seems to be with conservative Democrats.

Within the Democratic Party, Obama's losses are primarily evident among the relatively small group that describes its political views as conservative. The 63% of conservative Democrats supporting Obama over McCain in Aug. 18-24 polling is the lowest Obama has earned since he clinched the Democratic nomination in June. At the same time, there have been no similar drops in support for Obama in the preferences of liberal or moderate Democrats.

Here's Gallup on the implications of Obama's conservative defection for the general election:

Obama held the slight upper hand in the race from early June through mid-August. His failure to maintain that last week - averaging a tie with McCain at 45% - can be largely explained by some defection from the conservative wing of the Democratic Party, as well as less crossover support from moderate and liberal Republicans....

It will be important to see whether Obama's erstwhile supporters - particularly conservative Democrats - come back to the fold this week as they watch the Democratic National Convention and take a fresh look at their new nominee for president.

There's some "high anxiety" up in Denver, and if these folks don't come in for a landing, the party's hopes for a historic victory in the fall may dissipate in the clouds.

Hillary Clinton’s Unofficial Announcement for 2012

Hillary Clinton's speech tonight to the Democratic National Convention in Denver may well be remembered as one of the most significant speeches in the history of American political party conventions.

Over the last 18 months, Senator Clinton has developed into a masterful politician.

From launching her campaign from the high perches of arrogance and inevitability in early 2007, to returning to the stage tonight on the wings of generous magnanimity, Hillary Clinton delivered a knock out so decisive that it's clear she's fully deserving - in demeanor if not delgates - to be standing herself Thursday night at the rostrum accepting her party's nomination as candidate for President of the United States.

Whether or not she made the sale for Barack Obama among her disgruntled supporters, there can be no doubt that a great many Americans saw what must rightly be considered Hillary Clinton's unofficial announcement for the Democratic nomination in 2012.

The speech had it all: From combative partisanship to compassionate public purpose, from bedrock American individualism and bold gendered hermeneutics, from historical lore to histrionic lampoons, Clinton's address affected a near-perfect tone that placed Democratic Party unity above her own immediate personal political interests.

Listeners may recall their favorite moments of the speech. Mine came near the end, when Clinton began the crescendo toward her conclusion, drawing on the imagery of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad:

My mother was born before women could vote. My daughter got to vote for her mother for president. This is the story of America, of women and men who defy the odds and never give up.

So how do we give this country back to them? By following the example of a brave New Yorker, a woman who risked her lives to bring slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad.

On that path to freedom, Harriet Tubman had one piece of advice: "If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there's shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going."

Senator Clinton continued, rallying the delegates at the Pepsi Center, exclaiming, "In America, you always keep going. We're Americans. We're not big on quitting."

Those words, of course, provide the perfect summation for her 2008 campaign. Like Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius of the Academy Award-winning film epic, Gladiator, Hillary Clinton simply wouldn't die.

From New Hampshire to Pennsylvania to Indiana, Hillary Clinton always kept going, scoring big electoral wins thoughout the primaries season, demonstrating massive appeal across demographic constituencies (not the least, significantly, being working-class whites).

But the power of her winning appeal will be tested over the next couple of days.

Sunday's CNN poll found the 27 percent of Democratic Hillary supporters saying they'd vote for John McCain in November. In Denver this week, Clinton supporters have joined together in solidarity to toast McCain at GOP-sponsored happy hour events.

Of course, it seems incredible that so many people - in their unhappiness with Barack Obama - would either bolt the party or stay home on election day - so the remaining months of the campaign will be instructive.

Much now depends on Obama himself. His political liabilities are manifold. From inexperience to perceived anti-American values, the success of his presidential bid rests fully in his hands.

Hillary Clinton tonight made a resounding case for party unity. If Democrats indeed submerge their rivalries in time to bolster their sagging fortunes, no small amount of the credit will be due to Hillary Clinton's unofficial announcement that she intends to be a major player in presidential politics four years from now.

Photo Credit: New York Times

McCain Surges as Obama's Biden Pick Flops in Public Opinion

The trends in polling this week are even more advantageous to the GOP than I've predicted thus far.

I argued previously that "Obama Will Get No Post-Denver Polling Bounce," but even with that I'm caught off guard by Gallup's latest tracking numbers finding John McCain leading Barack Obama 46 to 44 percent:

It's official: Barack Obama has received no bounce in voter support out of his selection of Sen. Joe Biden to be his vice presidential running mate.

Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Aug. 23-25, the first three-day period falling entirely after Obama's Saturday morning vice presidential announcement, shows 46% of national registered voters backing John McCain and 44% supporting Obama, not appreciably different from the previous week's standing for both candidates. This is the first time since Obama clinched the nomination in early June, though, that McCain has held any kind of advantage over Obama in Gallup Poll Daily tracking.

The race for president has been virtually tied since mid-August. In this period, Obama's support from national registered voters has consistently ranged from 44% to 46%. The 46% currently supporting McCain is technically his best showing since late May/early June, but is not a statistically significant improvement over his recent range from 43% to 45%. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)

An analysis of historical election poll trends by Gallup Poll Managing Editor Jeff Jones shows that recent presidential campaigns have enjoyed a small (though short-lived) bounce from the running mate announcement. This includes a four percentage point bounce for John Kerry in 2004 after selecting John Edwards, a 5-point bounce for Al Gore in 2000 with his announcement of Joe Lieberman, and a 3-point bounce for George W. Bush in 2000 upon choosing Dick Cheney. Bob Dole received an extraordinary 9-point bounce in 1996 after bringing Jack Kemp onto his ticket.

All of these bounces occurred before the respective party's convention began, and in most cases the candidates received an additional boost in the polls upon completion of the convention. Thus, any increase in Obama's support in the coming days would seem to be more the result of the star-studded and well publicized Democratic national convention than the apparently lackluster Biden selection.

Note that while, yes, McCain's lead remains within the margin-of-error range, holding statistical significance aside, over the last week McCain's picked up 6 percent on Obama on a straight point basis.

Trend-wise, this is even better than I'd hoped. My expectation earlier was for Obama to stagnate this week, getting a small single-digit bounce coming out his acceptance speech, a lead that would collapse upon the announcement of McCain's running mate.

Hillary better knock a Mile High home run tonight at the Pepsi Center. Obama's lagging behind historical benchmarks, and the more I look at the data, the less favorable appear Democratic Party prospects, not only for a post-convention polling bounce, but for post-Labor Day campaign success as well.

Note finally, if McCain announces his vice-presidential running mate ahead of schedule, possibly on Thursday, the GOP may well chip into Obama's numbers even more (and a Thursday veep announcement could dramatically jumble the day's press cycle, surpressing the media bounce from Obama's acceptance speech in Denver).

Photo Credit: Cleveland Leader, "McCain Pulls Ahead of Obama in Second Poll this Month."

Obama Dogged by 1960s Radical Ties

The American Issues Project has released a rebuttal to Barack Obama's Chicago-style campaign of intimidation against those speaking out against the Illinois Senator's associations with 1960s-era radical terrorists.

USA Today offers a background report, "Obama Dogged by Links to 1960s Radical":

Conservatives are stepping up efforts to turn 1960s radical Bill Ayers into a political liability for Barack Obama.

This spring, Obama's links to Ayers briefly became a campaign controversy. Now American Issues Project is spending $2.8 million to air a TV ad highlighting links between Obama and Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground Organization, which opposed the Vietnam War and was responsible for several bombings.

Obama released a rebuttal TV ad Monday. "With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the '60s, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers?" a narrator asks.

A movie, Hype: The Obama Effect, was first shown Sunday in Denver. It was made by Citizens United, another conservative group, and explores the Ayers-Obama connection and questions whether Obama can unite the country.

Documents released today by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) will be scrutinized for clues to the relationship.

Ayers was a founder of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school-reform group. Obama chaired its board from 1995-99. National Review reported last week that UIC said records detailing meetings and other business were public, then reversed itself. UIC said Friday there was a misunderstanding.

Obama and Ayers, now a professor and author, live a few blocks apart in this city's Hyde Park neighborhood. Conservative activists say their relationship is evidence that Ayers' radical politics helped mold Obama's views.

"Ayers is clearly a relevant issue as it relates to Obama's pattern of relationships," says David Bossie of Citizens United.

American Issues Project spokesman Christian Pinkston says Ayers' influence is an open question, but "it's hard to see how one actually could resolve having any sort of relationship with an admitted, remorseless domestic terrorist."

The ad notes that Weathermen bombed the Capitol and asks why Obama would "be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it?"

Ed Failor, a founder of American Issues Project, worked for John McCain's Iowa campaign.

The Obama campaign on Monday released a letter sent to the Justice Department last week asserting that the American Issues Project ad violates federal rules that bar tax-exempt political groups from advocating a candidate's election or defeat. Pinkston called it "a sad ploy to circumvent the First Amendment." The campaign also released a letter sent last week to TV stations disputing the ad's truthfulness.

Campaign officials say the 47-year-old candidate and the 63-year-old UIC education professor have only a casual relationship.

"The last time Obama saw Ayers was about a year ago when he crossed paths with him while biking in the neighborhood," says Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman. "The suggestion that Ayers was a political adviser to Obama or someone who shaped his political views is patently false."

Actually, the patent falshood is the lie that Obama's trying to perputate on the American people.

This story's received intense coverage from commentators in the right-wing press and blogosphere. It's high times for the mainstream media to pick up on this scandal and run with it.

See also: "Attack Ads Slam Obama Ahead of Democratic Convention!", and "Fighting Back Against Obama’s Thugs."

McCain 3 AM Phone Call Greets Democrats on Defense

John McCain's got a brilliant new ad buy out attacking Barack Obama in 3:00am-style, with Hillary Clinton playing a starring role:

It's hard to imagine a more effective advertisement. The beauty is that by showcasing Hillary Clinton's criticism of Barack Obama, McCain inoculates the GOP from recriminations over going negative. What better way to hit the Democrats where it hurts than by using the potent Clinton wedge to both hammer Obama and potentially exacerbate tensions within Democratic ranks?

The McCain 3am call greets a Democratic Party on defense. Opening night in Denver showcased a bunch of left-wing partisans hesitant to go on attack against the GOP.

Josh Marshall wants Democrats to turn up the heat, to "attack, attack, attack," but his readers warn that Michelle Obama had to pitch her message softly. The unsaid reason? Mrs. Obama had to pump up Barack Hussein's family values. Otherwise, she'd only come off sounding shrill, with the effect of simply reminding voters of her rage against the machine, that with Barack Obama's nomination, this is the first time she's been proud of her country.

Marshall illustrates why the Democrats are on defense:

The real weapon the Republicans have on the table right now is simply burying Obama in so much sleaze, xenophobia and slurs that he becomes unelectable. In that sense, humanizing Obama, discrediting the attacks through an affirmative message, is the key to sealing the deal for Obama. I see that argument. To a significant degree I agree with it. And if this just wasn't the night for attack, attack, attack, that'd be fine. I just need to know it's coming and that - even if mainly in the hands of surrogates - it won't stop until election day. Listen to Begala. It's not about responding quickly to the attacks. It's about making McCain respond to Democrats' attacks.

Exactly.

If the Democratic nominee, his wife, and top party spokesmen have to rely on "surrogates" to attack "Bush/McCain" it defeats the whole purpose of a national nominating convention.

Paul Begala's right: The Democratic Convention got off poorly last night. The party's got emotion and uplift, but it also showed that as soon as it goes negative, it risks a "mirror, mirror on the wall" effect, that is, by going "bitter," Democratic attacks will work to emphasize the Obamas' essential opposition to American decency, an opposition that is the deep, sub rosa message of anti-Americanism from which Barack Obama and his wife so desperately need to hide.

**********

UPDATE:

Taylor Marsh laments the Democrats on defense:

Watching the convention from the media room, but also at times from inside the convention hall, you get a different take from what's being seen by the television audience. Still, when I get a gut feeling, well, it's usually worth listening to. I got that feeling last night when as the minutes, then hours ticked by, I still didn't know where it was all going. What the hell was it all about? At the end of it all I still didn't know. The whole night just floated from one moment to the next. I also didn't hear the most important thing of all.

Attacking George W. Bush? No.

Attacking John McCain who's agreed with George W. Bush 95% of the time? Nada.

Attacking the horrendous policies of the last years that has taken this country into the worst situation at home and around the world we've been in looking back decades? Zilch.

If this convention doesn't build to a unmitigated dissection of George W. Bush and John McCain, especially on foreign policy, but also the economy, one thing will happen. We will lose in November.

This is Marsh's buyer's remorse, you might say ... she's just not coming out with it.

Michelle Obama Loves America: A Reintroduction

Michelle Obama, looking radiant and brimming with confidence, delivered an impassioned speech at the Democratic National Convention tonight in Denver.

Mrs. Obama's clear goal was to instill trust in the American people, trust that her husband was just like them, trust that the Democratic nominee shared their hopes and dreams for the health and prosperity of the nation and its people. She spoke of her loving father, who in ailing health spent extra time in the mornings to get ready for work. She spoke of how her dad exemplified a loving care that she worked hard to pass down in raising her daughters. And she spoke of the opportunity that America had provided, the opportunity to attend college and to be on that stage at the Democratic National Convention, living out the true meaning of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Her address was coherent, reasonably well-delivered, and warmly received by the delegates. Her performance seemed exponentially better than the video snippets from earlier this year, when she notoriously declared that for "the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country."

Mrs. Obama avoided such bitter negativism, finishing her encomium to the American dream with the exclamation, "And that is why I love this country..."

The Wall Street Journal provides some background on the importance of Mrs. Obama's speech:

Aides called her speech on Monday a "reintroduction" to the country. The goal was to show the Obamas as "an American family," said one. "It's get to know the Obamas; they could live next door."

In a statement Monday, the campaign said Mrs. Obama would talk about the couple's life together, "building a family grounded in faith and values."

"After all that's happened these past 19 months, the Barack Obama I know today is the same man I fell in love with 19 years ago," she planned to say in one section. "He's the same man who drove me and our new baby daughter home from the hospital 10 years ago this summer, inching along at a snail's pace, peering anxiously at us in the rear-view mirror, feeling the whole weight of her future in his hands, determined to give her everything he'd struggled so hard for himself, determined to give her what he never had: the affirming embrace of a father's love"....

Many black women hail her as an icon. She is a Princeton- and Harvard-educated lawyer who works as a hospital executive. She is also the mother of two young girls, and is seen as both stylish and outspoken on the campaign trail.

But many whites remain uneasy. In the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 29% of voters said they had a negative view of Mrs. Obama, almost twice as many as said they had a negative view of John McCain's wife, Cindy. Mrs. Obama's positives were also higher than Mrs. McCain's, with 38% saying they had a positive view of her, compared with 29% for Cindy McCain. (The rest were neutral or didn't have an opinion.)

Mrs. Obama's brother, Craig, when speaking about his sister's community service, did not mention that Public Allies Chicago, a youth leadership development organization where Mrs. Obama had been executive director, has steady ties the Gamaliel Foundation, a group spouting extreme, anti-American ideology on par with Reverend Jeremiah Revered Wright’s black liberation theology.

Stanley Kurtz has more on this:

After hearing about Barack Obama's ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Fr. Pfleger and the militant activists at ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), it should be clear to everyone that his extremist roots run deep. But Obama has yet another connection with the world of far-Left radicalism. Obama has long been linked - through foundation grants, shared political activism, collaboration on legislation and tactics, and mutual praise and support - with the Chicago-based Gamaliel Foundation, one of the least known yet most influential umbrella groups for church-based "community organizers." The same separatist, anti-American theology of liberation that was so boldly and bitterly proclaimed by Obama's pastor is shared, if more quietly, by Obama's Gamaliel colleagues. The operative word is "quietly." Gamaliel specializes in ideological stealth, and Obama, a master student of Gamaliel strategy, shows disturbing signs of being a sub rosa radical himself. Obama's legislative tactics, as well as his persistent profession of non-ideological pragmatism, appear to be inspired by his radical mentors' most sophisticated tactics. Not only has Obama studied, taught, and apparently absorbed stealth techniques from radical groups like Gamaliel and ACORN, but in his position as a board member of Chicago's supposedly nonpartisan Woods Fund, he quietly funneled money to his radical allies - at the very moment he most needed their support to boost his political career. It's high time for these shadowy, perhaps improper, ties to receive a dose of sunlight. The connections are numerous.

This background provides an even greater rationale for Michelle Obama's reintroduction to the American people, and to share the story of her family and her hard-working father. It's a background that seems innocent, even poignant, but wholly alien to the fist-bumping, fatigue-wearing, Angela Davis hair-styling image of the future First Lady that Michelle Obama may well still become.

This is why the success of Mrs. Obama's reintroduction tonight was of crucial importance. Her plea to the American people, her bid to reassure average folks that she really does love America, may help her weather some of the closer scrutiny of her Chicago ties that is likely to come before the November election.

The Revolution in Denver

Denver's anti-American, anti-Bush, anti-capitalist protests at the Democratic National Convention kicked off over the weekend, ahead of official party festivities.

Little Green Footballs has photos, and there's no doubt that this is one angry, Marxist revolutionary crowd.

The Denver Post has the background, and it looks likes the barricades are a bit undermanned:

Maybe it was too hot Sunday afternoon, or maybe they hadn't gotten warmed up yet, but the tens of thousands of demonstrators that protest organizers promised would march through Denver turned out to be tens of hundreds.

Demonstrations began early Sunday and kept up a steady beat of marching, sign waving — and tying up downtown traffic. But through most of it, protesters were vastly outnumbered by police and, occasionally, even by those who came downtown just to watch the spectacle.

Lt. Ron Saunier, a Denver Police Department spokesman, said the number of protesters that actually showed up was nowhere near what groups had told city officials to expect.

Recreate 68 had projected that as many as 25,000 or even 50,000 people would participate in activities this week. Instead, a group estimated by police at 1,000 to 1,200 participated in a Recreate 68 anti-war march Sunday morning, with a much smaller group parading up Colfax Avenue later in the day.

The protesters are not without television coverage, however, and this has amazingly generated some recriminations among the desperate netroots left:

When the news broke last week that the Clinton's formed a "whip team" to handle troublemakers, I immediately realized that any disturbance, no matter how insignificant, would be elevated to a top story. It's kind of like when there's an earthquake and all the helicopters swarm over a burning shack somewhere and people across America get the impression that all of California is engulfed in flames....

Naturally, FOX News is already leading the way by not just reporting that it's 1968 all over again, but trying to actually stir up trouble for their broadcasts. But the rest of the media appears to be receiving the message perfectly. CNN is spending most of their time this morning talking about the attempts to "paper over" the big divisions in the party. MSNBC just ran a clip of Teddy Kennedy standing with Jimmy Carter in 1980 as NBC's David Brinkley cooed, "This is awkward."

Yep, everyone's out to sabotage the Democrats.

Yeah right ... who needs Donald Segretti when International ANSWER's on hand outside the convention hall and Barack Hussein Obama's on the inside, with his machine bosses attacking Hillary Clinton supporters as "Uncle Tom"?

If the police end up having to break out rifle butts and truncheons to control the radical riff-raff, Democrats voters might as well stay home on November 4.

Democratic Buyer's Remorse

In the midst of Barack Obama's latest controversy, this time over the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, I suggested that "Democratic buyer's remorse may be this year's October Surprise."

While my quip was prompted by unrepentant 1960s radical William Ayers, the possibility of Democratic buyer's remorse enveloping both officials and the rank-and-file of the party appears increasingly likely.

The scale of Barack Obama's liabilities may be so grand, the range of his controversies so vast, and his depth of experience so shallow that the Democratic electorate may not need until October to realize it picked badly in the nomination contests this year.

Stuart Rothenberg makes the suggestion in his essay, "Should Democrats Be Feeling Any Kind of Buyer's Remorse?":

As Democrats kick off their national convention to nominate Illinois Sen. Barack Obama as their nominee for president, there is little or no evidence that activists or insiders are having second thoughts about the party's standard-bearer.

In other words, buyer's remorse has not settled in, and it probably won't unless Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) nips Obama at the wire 10 weeks from now.

Yet only the most uncritical party insider could avoid asking himself or herself the obvious question as delegates gather in Denver: Did Democrats, who two years ago placed no higher priority on selecting a candidate than on picking someone who could win back the White House in 2008, really pick the right person to carry the party's banner this year?

Obama remains the favorite to win in November, but he has not yet come close to locking up the race, even with a political landscape that is slanted so completely in his party's favor.

Because of that, it's hard not to wonder whether his party would be in a far more secure position to win the White House if Democrats in Denver were preparing to nominate Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner or any of a number of other Democrats, possibly including New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

On one hand, voters remain very unhappy with the Bush administration and with the direction of the country, and Obama remains one of the party's strongest messengers for "change."

Moreover, the Illinois Democrat's ability to excite younger voters and mobilize African-Americans is unmatched when compared to other potential Democratic nominees. Unlike what Clinton or Biden could have done as the party's presidential nominee, Obama may be able to change the traditional political arithmetic this year, benefiting Democrats up and down the ballot in many states.

But Obama's shortcomings, most particularly his limited experience, his difficulty connecting with older, working-class white voters and his inability to ease voter doubts about his ability to handle foreign policy crises, make him inherently a riskier choice for the White House.

The Senator's supporters, of course, argue that events have proved the soundness of his judgment, and he'll have plenty of opportunities during the next two and a half months to do what Ronald Reagan did in 1980 -- convince undecided voters that he has the toughness, astuteness and levelheadedness to protect U.S. interests abroad and deal with tough, even ruthless, adversaries.

But at least at this point in the campaign, with the surge in Iraq apparently paying dividends and the Russian invasion of Georgia reminding Americans of the dangers that still exist internationally, Obama looks far more fragile as a nominee than he did five months ago, riding the wave of change.

Rothenberg's putting it mildly, but read more at the link.

A key point from the article: As much as Democrats want to focus on "Bush's third term," John McCain's been successful in making this summer's media coverage a referendum on Barack Obama's fitness to serve.

And don't forget about the trouble in Hillaryland!

It turns out that some of Clinton's top advisers will skip Obama's acceptance speech at INVESCO Field.

Not only that, Hillary's delegates are being told to vote their conscience, in Denver, which could make for some hot times on the convention floor, particulary since the sparks have already started to fly: Delmarie Cobb, a Clinton delegate from Chicago, has apparently been slurred as an "Uncle Tom" by Emil Jones, Barack Obama's South Side political mentor. It remains to be seen if the Clinton-Obama disunity will be settled in time to salvage the promise of the Democrats' historic primary season earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the presidential horse race remains tied, and 27 percent of Hillary's supporters say they'll support McCain in November, up from 16 percent in late June.

Hillary's Convention Narrative

Long-time readers will recall that I blogged the presidential primaries like a man on fire.

I recall, earlier this year, as the Democratic race wore on, many commentators suggested that the party schism between the supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was potentially fatal to Democratic Party hopes in the fall. I discounted such talk. Anger at nearly eight years of GOP rule would provide a central focal point binding the disparate left-wing factions together by the time of the national party conventions and beyond.

That scenario might have held, but with Barack Obama becoming the Democratic nominee, the passions of the "Hillraisers" haven't settled down; and the selection of Joe Biden as running-mate may have been the ultimate slap in the face, especially since Clinton apparently wasn't even vetted for the post (I remember all of the "unity" rallies now ... a waste for Obama, but a PR milestone for Hillary).

Well, it turns out that even if Hillary Clinton gives a bang-up send-off speech for Obama, her supporters my nurse enough grudges to defect from Democratic Party ranks anyway, with large numbers voting for John McCain in the general election. Top Democratic officials are already moving to revise the party's presidential nomination process. All of this is combining for a perfect storm of self-immolation this year, especially with hopes of a bounce in polling trends dangerously deflating for the Obama-Biden ticket.

All of this prompts Rich Lowry to suggests that the dominant narrative this week in Denver will be Hillary Clinton's:

IT'S Hillary's convention. Not in the way she imagined it when the primary battle began - she's not the nominee making history and bidding to end the dread Bush years. That role has been usurped by Barack Obama.

But the convention narrative revolves around her in important ways.

It's not just because so much drama attaches to the question of how she and embittered husband Bill regard Obama, and not just because she and Bill are getting so much air time. Obama has two major challenges this week - and both are Hillary-centric.

First, Obama has to win over Hillary's voters from the primaries, only 52 percent of whom are now supporting him, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

Second, he has to occupy the space on the political spectrum that Hillary carved out in the primaries - identifying himself with mainstream American values, demonstrating a toughness on foreign affairs and connecting with the working class with his economic policies. (If he's at a loss how to do any of it, perhaps Hillary can explain it over a shot and beer chaser.)

That Obama is still performing so poorly among Hillary voters makes the prominence he's given the Clintons look less like an abject capitulation and more like a strategic necessity. If the Clintons can deliver Hillary's voters, every minute devoted to them will have been worth it.

The Clintons, of course, are profoundly conflicted. They've long thought Obama will lose, but they can't betray that belief lest - should Obama actually fail in the fall - they get blamed, engendering the bitterness of half the party.

Lowry suggests that the Clintons are torn over all of this. They don't think Obama's electable, but they can't say it publicly, for fear of being blamed for a Democratic catastrophe.

There's no better outcome for the Clintons, of course. Hillary will become the odds-on Democratic frontrunner if McCain wins on November 4.

The Politico has more in its piece, "Tensions Boil Between Obama-Clinton Camps."

Note that all of this is taking place during an electoral environment for 2008 seen as a slam-dunk Democratic year. For example, Bloomberg writes this morning, "Democrats Begin Convention With Most Advantages Since Watergate."

Unfortunately, today's polls aren't cooperating, partly because Hillary supporters are dragging down the numbers for the Democratic ticket.

The party needs that "game changer," and they need it fast.

Netroots Seeks Leftward Shift in Media Coverage

Just this weekend American Power was dismissed as a "random, arcane, nearly useless professorial blog" by Professor Russell Burgos at UCLA.

I'm not familiar with Burgos' work, but a quick Google search indicates he's apparently a frequent contributor to hard-left blog comment threads, and he spends time writing progressive letters to the editor. Burgos is also an Army veteran, so perhaps that background informs his left-wing perspective, something like an Apocalypse Now syndrome.

In light of all this, it's not surprising Burgos would dismiss American Power as "nearly useless," although my feeling is that Burgos wouldn't say the same thing of the lefty blogs he frequents, like Washinton Monthly's "Political Animal."

I mention all of this while contemplating this morning's piece at the Politico, "Netroots Push Back Against MSM 'Bias'." The article suggests left-wing bloggers hardly agree with the notion of the "liberal media," and they're out to do something about it:

If you asked a random sample of progressive Democrats and liberal bloggers to describe the current state of political media, from CNN to The New York Times, there’s one word that’s unlikely to come up: “liberal.”

For those on the left, the more operative words these days are “mainstream,” “establishment,” or “traditional.” And if one is feeling particularly aggrieved, the description of choice is increasingly — and surprisingly — “conservative.”

Gone are the days when only the right howled about bias and malice from network anchors and star political reporters. What began roughly a decade ago as frustration from Democrats over coverage of President Bill Clinton’s impeachment and adulterous escapades has morphed into an informally organized rapid response network, ready to pounce on any and all perceived media slights against Barack Obama.

Clearly, bloggers aren’t a monolithic group. But it’s fair to say that liberal bloggers — and the more activist-oriented members of the Netroots within that group — have been calling out the media’s campaign coverage with far more regularity than just four years ago. And it’s not simply because there are more activists who know how Moveable Type works.

Pushback against the media has been aided by the growth of more sophisticated liberal news sites, such as Talking Points Memo and The Huffington Post. In 2004, TPM founder Josh Marshall didn’t have any paid staffers; this year he has nine. And Arianna Huffington’s arsenal of nearly 2,000 bloggers didn’t exist until President Bush was already six months into his second term. Not to mention, liberal watchdog group Media Matters — which provides ammo to many bloggers — has grown in that time from about 20 staffers to near 100, according to a source familiar with the organization.

Criticism from the left can take a variety of forms, including fact-checking, aggregating links and sometimes original reporting. Also, similar to the right’s strategy over decades of “working the refs,” there are left-leaning bloggers who provide a knee-jerk dismissal of whatever’s on the front page of the Times or making the rounds on Sunday chat shows.

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, who co-authored with Jerome Armstrong the seminal Netroots tract, “Crashing the Gates,” said in an e-mail that he’s found political coverage to be “utterly vapid, devoid of context, frequently wrong, and wedded to narratives that defy all logic and reality.”

Trolling a handful of the top liberal blogs, it’s obvious that Moulitsas’ critique isn’t isolated.

Liberal bloggers often raise the issue of how Al Gore and John Kerry were treated by the press and have adopted a “never again” approach to the 2008 race. Bloggers raise a ruckus when they believe the media is focusing too heavily on superficial issues rather than policy. Some examples: bloggers cried foul when the national press kept writing about whether Obama wore a flag lapel pin, as well as the various narratives discussed as clouding his chances in November — inexperience, overly eloquent, arrogant, too skinny, too black or not black enough. And don’t mention Bittergate, Obama’s now infamous thoughts about Americans who own guns and go to church, to a left-of-center blogger, either.

“Liberals believe that they can’t get a fair shake from the media anymore,” said Eric Alterman, media critic and author of the 2003 book “What Liberal Media?”

So when liberals feel the media is misrepresenting something important, Alterman said, they respond quickly. “That’s an exact mirror of what the right did with talk radio,” he added.

Alterman, like several liberal writers interviewed, said that he considers the majority of Beltway journalists to be socially liberal but “corrupted by their need to be part of the establishment.”

Read the whole thing, here.

The basic academic consensus, a point the Politico touches on, is that journalists are mostly left-wing Democrats, but they seek to practice the objective professionalism that is the standard of non-biased journalism. Hence, the leftoshere's outrage is now basically transplanting 1990s-era talk radio as the grassroots movement du jour seeking to eviscerate views that don't align with their own.

Netroots practices are often totalitarian, seen, for example, in Jane Hamsher's latest atttempt to smother journalists who are friendly with Republicans.

To borrow from Megan McArdle, the netroots' anger at the establishment media power structure seems to be rapidly transmuting into anger at the non-netroots media power structure.

No doubt Russell Burgos approves. Perhaps he can redirect some of that anger at C-SPAN.

New Poll Confirms Obama Dangers as Convention Begins

As I argued this afternoon, Michael Dukakis held a seven-point lead over George H.W. Bush in public opinion polling on the eve of the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Governor Dukakis went on to enjoy a 17 percentage-point bounce after being nominated by his party for the general election campaign.

But this year, Barack Obama's campaign is floundering in the polls in an election that has all the makings and excitement of a Democratic blowout in November. Indeed, at an identical point in the campaign compared to 20 years ago (with the Democrats then, like now, seeking the White House after nearly eight years of GOP rule), Gallup finds the 2008 race in a perfect tie, with 45 percent of voters nationwide supporting each candidate for president.

This should not be happening to the Democrats.

John McCain's campaign was criticized in March for campaign drift, for missing a golden opportunity to seize the initiative while the Democratic campaign sludged along. Just six-weeks ago McCain was considered still adrift, in need of a dramatic shakeup, a "dose of discipline." Throughout the year, the GOP's suffered from an "enthusiasm gap" that has promised to swamp the party in turnout come November. And the GOP has trailed the Democrats badly in the money race, with the uptick in McCain's July reporting seen as a lifeline after months of underperformance in campaign receipts.

Well, something has happened along the roads to Denver and Minneapolis. In the first public opinion survey conducted since news of Joe Biden's selection as the Democratic running mate, CNN is reporting that McCain and Obama are tied dead-even in the presidential horse race:

It’s a dead heat in the race for the White House. The first national poll conducted entirely after Barack Obama publicly named Joe Biden as his running mate suggests that battle for the presidency between the Illinois senator and Republican rival John McCain is all tied up.

In a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll out Sunday night, 47 percent of those questioned are backing Obama with an equal amount supporting the Arizona senator.

“This looks like a step backward for Obama, who had a 51 to 44 percent advantage last month,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

“Even last week, just before his choice of Joe Biden as his running mate became known, most polls tended to show Obama with a single-digit advantage over McCain,” adds Holland.

So what’s the difference now?

It may be supporters of Hillary Clinton, who still would prefer the Senator from New York as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.


Sixty-six percent of Clinton supporters, registered Democrats who want Clinton as the nominee, are now backing Obama. That’s down from 75 percent in the end of June. Twenty-seven percent of them now say they’ll support McCain, up from 16 percent in late June.

“The number of Clinton Democrats who say they would vote for McCain has gone up 11 points since June, enough to account for most although not all of the support McCain has gained in that time,” says Holland.

Clinton and Obama battled throughout the primary season, with Clinton winning more than 40 percent of the delegates. She suspended her bid for the White House and backed Obama in early June, after the end of the primary season.

A majority of those surveyed said the selection of Biden was a good pick, although Clinton supporters were significantly less enthusiastic as registered Democrats as a whole.

Note though, Obama's weaknesses are also found beyond the CNN survey: The Western States poll now reports McCain holding a nine-point regional spread over Obama "If the 2008 presidential election were held today..."

This week should go a long way toward settling questions surrounding the inability of the Democrats to take advantage of the permissive environment helping the party this year.

There have been suggestions that a "wave of buyer’s remorse has swept the Democratic Party." While that sounds like a premature hypothesis, Obama's tepid support in public opinion - particularly coming on the heels of his veep selection - is certainly starting to flesh out the thesis a bit.

McCain Leads Colorado as Tide Turns Against Obama Nationally

John McCain holds a slight but statistically insignificant lead in the Quinnipiac University poll on the Colorado presidential race.

McCain is up in Colorado 46 to 45 percent, but Quinnipiac notes that McCain holds advantages on key question items:

This latest survey might have more good news for McCain than might appear at first glance. Despite the closeness of the horse race numbers, he is viewed favorably 53 - 34 percent compared to Obama's 48 - 39 percent.

Colorado voters trust Obama more than McCain 49 - 42 percent to handle the energy crisis, 47 - 43 percent to handle the economy and 48 - 41 percent to handle a natural disaster.

But they trust McCain more, 51 - 37 percent, to handle Russia, 57 - 35 percent to handle a terrorist incident in the U.S. and 56 - 36 percent to handle a conflict between Iran and Israel.

"Colorado is one of the most important battleground states that will decide the presidency as Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama slug it out nose to nose. If the national election is close in November, a handful of votes in Colorado will be decisive," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Right now, independent voters are split with 46 percent for Sen. McCain and 44 percent for Sen. Obama.

"Who wins the election may wind up depending on whether voters look inward to the economy and fuel prices or outward to world hot spots."

It will be interesting to see how things play out.

International events have contributed substantially to the Democratic slide in the polls (Obama's disastrous European tour, for example, as well as Democratic weakness on the Russia crisis). Not just that, polls show Americans less gloomy about the economy, and gasoline prices have declined somewhat, taking some stress off U.S. pocketbooks, and neutralizing a bit of the Democratic advantage on economic issues.

Nationally, McCain and Obama are tied at 45 percent in the latest Gallup poll, and Obama's selection of Senator Joseph Biden is not likely to improve Democratic polling numbers.

All of this is awful news for Barack Obama and his supporters. Indeed, the Democrats at this stage of the campaign - on the eve of a historically diverse national party convention - should now be pulling out a double-digit advantage over the GOP.

The fact that they are not explains, I would argue, why the Democratic left is so terrified that many are resorting to the most spurious allegations and irrational attacks imaginable.

The worst example, at the moment, is Jacob Weisberg's, who argued yesterday that "racism is the only reason" John McCain might win the election (but don't forget Dave Neiwart, who argues that using the adjective "audacious" to describe Obama is the new "presumptious," which is racist code for "uppity," if you can follow that).

Closely following behind Weisberg are Talking Points Memo, Think Progress, and Matthew Yglesias, who are enraged at Mark Halperin's suggestion that Obama's recent attacks on McCain's "houses" have opened him up to GOP attacks on Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, and William Ayers. TBogg, as well, has added his screams to the left's totalitarian bid to silence AP reporter Ron Fournier for being friendly to Republicans.

And then there's the Newshoggers, who have joined the military-bashing meme attacking McCain for his political identification as a prisoner-of-war during Vietnam.

The fact is, despite a practically overdetermined Democratic election victory for this November, the tide has turned against Barack Obama and his partisans. Extreme fear and outrage on the left are starting to show as a result, so we can expect more desperate, unbridled attacks on alleged GOP racism or McCain's presumed media "adulation-advantage" going forward.

Note that with Barack Obama's selection of Senator Joseph Biden as running mate, some commentators have been offering up an Obama-Biden/Dukakis-Bentson analogy for the general election.

While clever, it's supremely unfair to Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentson.

Not only did Dukakis hold a 47 to 41 percent advantage in Gallup polling on the eve of the 1988 Democratic National Convention (and, recall, Gallup finds the 2008 race tied today), Dukakis and Bentsen were eminently more qualified for the Oval Office than are Obama and Biden. Dukakis was the longest serving governor in the history of Massachusetts, and Bentsen really did serve with Jack Kennedy during his 48-year career in the United States Congress.

I'll have more later.

Ties That Bind: Barack Obama and William Ayers

Barack Obama's association with Weatherman terrorist William Ayers has reemerged this week amid troubling questions surrounding a cover-up of Obama's failed leadership of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

Michael Barone indicates that "Obama Needs to Explain His Ties to William Ayers":

In my U.S. News column this week, I make a brief reference to the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist bomber William Ayers and his connections to Barack Obama. They were closer than Obama implied when George Stephanopoulos asked him about Ayers in the April 16 debate—the last debate Obama allowed during the primary season....

Ayers was one of the original grantees of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform organization in the 1990s, and was cochairman of the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, one the two operational arms of the CAC. Obama, then not yet a state senator, became chairman of the CAC in 1995. Later in that year, the first organizing meeting for Obama's state Senate campaign was held in Ayers's apartment. Ayers later wrote a memoir, and an article about him appeared in the New York Times on Sept. 11, 2001. "I don't regret setting bombs," Ayers is quoted as saying. "I feel we didn't do enough."

Ayers was a terrorist in the late 1960s and 1970s whose radical group set bombs at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol.

You might wonder what Obama was doing working with a character like this. And you might wonder how an unrepentant terrorist got a huge grant and cooperation from the Chicago public school system. You might wonder—if you don't know Chicago. For this is a city with a civic culture in which politicians, in the words of a story often told by former congressman, federal judge, and Clinton White House counsel Abner Mikva, "don't want nobody nobody sent." That's what Mikva remembers being told when he went to a Democratic ward headquarters to volunteer for Adlai Stevenson in the 1950s, and it rings true. And it's a civic culture in which there's nobody better to send you than your parents.

Barone continues, explaining why Ayers' past as a domestic terrorist is no problem for Obama:

He was willing to use Ayers and ally with him despite his terrorist past and lack of repentance. An unrepentant terrorist, who bragged of bombing the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, was a fit associate. Ayers evidently helped Obama gain insider status in Chicago civic life and politics—how much, we can't be sure unless the Richard J. Daley Library opens the CAC archive. But most American politicians would not have chosen to associate with a man with Ayers's past or of Ayers's beliefs. It's something voters might reasonably want to take into account.

Thomas Lifson covered the Obama-Ayers connection yesterday:

Obama and his campaign long have gone out of their way to downplay, in fact distort, the long and evidently deep relationship between Ayers and Obama.

Recall that Obama told ABC's George Stephanopolous that Ayers was just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood."

Yet, if Ayers was just a neighbor, why has Stanley Kurtz at the National Review been stonewalled by the University of Illinios Chicago regarding access to Annenberg files?

The university has agreed to open public access to the Daley Library's Annenberg documents, although Steve Diamond suggests questions remain on the hush, hush nature of the controversy:

Bill Ayers, the former terrorist leader of the Weather Underground, is now a prominent member of the UIC faculty in their College of Education. He was the founder of the CAC and helped pick Barack Obama as the CAC Board Chair in 1995....
Without a full explanation of the role of Ayers in this series of events, it is unlikely that the public will feel reassured that the CAC documents have not been tampered with.

As I've noted previously, the Ayers/CAC scandal is part of the new, broader pattern of Barack Obama's deceit, secrecy, and subterfuge.

So far, the press has largely given Obama a pass, but as attention mounts, the Annenberg case could further damage Obama's presidential aspirations. As Clarice Feldman notes:

The last thing Obama should want made public are his dubious associates....

Once the public learns more of the CAC, will the voters decide that the manner in which Obama exercised his sole opportunity at executive authority was so good that he deserves the keys to the Oval Office?

Will the voters conclude that the old- professor- in- the- neighborhood story was so disingenuous that Obama was lying to hide from them facts they deserved to know — indeed, facts every bit as relevant as Hillary’s failure at health care reform about which they were informed in the primaries?

Will voters who consider education an important issue — and surely that includes many important voter groups for Obama — take kindly to a man who took $110 million of charitable funds which were earmarked for improving public education and squandered it on salaries for men like Weatherman Ayers and Michael Klonsky, the Maoist leader of the Revolutionary Youth Movement which worked with the Weather Underground and who at the time of CAC’s lavish grants to him worked as a cab driver?

I don't think so.

Obama's a classic Chicago machine politician, and as revelations continue to surface, Democratic buyer's remorse may be this year's October Surprise.

Joe Biden's Disastrous Foreign Policy Liabilities

Barack Obama's selection of Senator Joseph Biden was designed to bolster the Democrats' flagging standings on the national security issue. Biden, a 35-year veteran of the Congress, serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, looked to provide foreign policy gravitas to Obama's dangerous inexperience on the international stage.

Yet, as analysts and bloggers take a closer look, Obama's Biden pick may end up being a disastrous liability for the campaign.

For one thing, Biden's holds a near-religious commitment to diplomacy before the resort to military force in a crisis. Biden's hedging has left the Delaware Senator a legacy of vacillation and hypocrisy in foreign affairs. For some background, here's Michael Gordon:

As the Bush administration was fine-tuning its plan to invade Iraq, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. helped draft a proposed resolution that emphasized the need for diplomatic efforts to dismantle Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs but gave President Bush the authority to use military force as a last resort....

Mr. Biden is widely seen as a liberal-minded internationalist. He has emphasized the need for diplomacy but has been prepared at times to back it with the threat of force. An early advocate of military action to quell the ethnic fighting in the Balkans, he has not been averse to American military intervention abroad. As the debates over Kosovo and later Iraq showed, he has been loath to give the United Nations a veto over American policy decisions. But he has also sought to ensure that the United States acted in concert with other nations.

The Los Angeles Times has more:

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. joins the Democratic ticket as an acknowledged foreign policy sage whose 36-year record has won him bipartisan praise as a liberal internationalist who generally hews close to his party's center. But he has sometimes found himself at odds with members of his own party as well as with Republicans.

Biden has frequently favored humanitarian interventions abroad and was an early and influential advocate for U.S. military action in the Balkans in the 1990s. He also advocates U.S. action to stem the continuing bloodshed in Darfur.

Some liberal Democrats remain distressed by his 2002 vote for the Iraq war, which Barack Obama opposed. Other critics say Biden was misguided or even naive in his most recent proposal to resolve sectarian conflict by giving broad autonomy to Iraq's three major population groups, the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. And he opposed last year's troop "surge," which by most accounts has contributed significantly to the reduction in violence in Iraq.

What appears to bind Biden and Obama in the realm of foreign affairs, however, is a shared belief in strong cooperation with America's traditional allies and in the use of force only as a last resort. The Democratic standard-bearers reject the belief of President Bush and some other conservatives that the United States should not hesitate to act unilaterally if other nations demur.

Biden's partition plan has not endeared him to Iraqis, as TigerHawk points out:

Reuters is reporting that Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden is not popular among Iraqis, who very much dislike Biden's proposal to partition their country....

The Biden partition plan was a bad idea from the beginning, and all Iraqis should be grateful that - so far - it has gained no footing within the executive branch.

Anyway, it is a reflection of the diminishing political significance of the Iraq war that Barack Obama, who secured the Democratic nomination in part by making much of his opposition to the war and his plan to withdraw our troops on a fast schedule, is now able to pick as his running mate a senator who voted for the invasion in 2002 and whose favored "solution" would have required more rather than less American involvement in Iraqi domestic politics.

What's particularly bothersome about Biden is his shameless antiwar pandering.

Recall that Obama's greatest weakness on foreign policy is his awful judgment on the Iraq war. When the conflict was going poorly in 2004 he advocated sending more troops to rectify the "botched" Bush-Rumsfeld light infantry invasion and failed post-conflict stablity operations. Yet, when the administration made key strategic adjustements in 2006-2007, Obama was one of the most vociferous oppoents of the surge in the U.S. Senate.

Yet, by selecting Biden, rather than choosing a running mate who has consistently advocated firmness and careful resolve on the conflict, he's found a campaign partner who has eschewed strategic clarity and carried water for the antiwar hordes.

As the National Review noted, commenting on Biden's selection as veep:

...Biden is a typical liberal who has no claim to post-partisanship...

His vaunted foreign-policy judgment is seriously flawed. Although he was not as irresponsible as other Democrats in calling for an immediate pullout from Iraq, he opposed the surge and plugged for an unworkable plan to partition the country, one long ago overtaken by events, even though his office was saying as of only a week ago that he still supports it.

The cardinal rule of vice-presidential picks is: Do no harm. It remains to be seen if Biden will meet even this low standard.

Scott at Power Line agrees:

Rather than adding to Obama's attractions or neutralizing Obama's liabilities, if he does anything, Biden subtracts from Obama's strengths and contributes to his liabilities.

Obama's selection of Joe Biden may prove a disastrous liability, accentuating weakness in foreign policy rather than strengthening it. As Michael Rubin concludes:

Obama may have wanted Biden's foreign policy experience, but he may soon find that Biden's track record leaves a lot to be desired. On Iraq, on Iran, and elsewhere...

The New York Times has a lead story this morning entitled, "In Obama’s Choice, a ‘Very Personal Decision’.

Unfortunatly for the Democrats, Obama's choice may end up as a very personal disaster.

Obama Passes Over Hillary Clinton With Snub Biden Pick

A big development this morning is the McCain campaign's release of a brilliant new ad buy hammering Barack Obama for passing over Hillary Clinton as running mate:

NARRATOR: She won millions of votes.

But isn't on his ticket.

Why?

For speaking the truth.

On his plans:

HILLARY CLINTON: "You never hear the specifics."

NARRATOR: On the Rezko scandal:

HILLARY CLINTON: "We still don't have a lot of answers about Senator Obama."

NARRATOR: On his attacks:

HILLARY CLINTON: "Senator Obama's campaign has become increasingly Negative."

NARRATOR: The truth hurt.

And Obama didn't like it.

JOHN MCCAIN: I'm John McCain and I approved this message.

The New York Times and the Washington Post have stories. McCain's targeting the gender vote still smarting at the perceived sexism of the primaries (Rassmussen finds women in general less than thrilled with the selection of Joe Biden as Democratic running mate).

This morning's commercial is the latest in McCain's smart aggressiveness hoping to blunt any positive bounce for Obama during the Democrats' big week in Denver. Yesterday, the campaign released a spot showing Biden saying he'd be honored to serve with John McCain "because I think the country would be better off."

Friday the campaign published a strategy press release predicting a 15 percentage-point convention bounce of Obama (floating high expectations).

On top of all this, of course, will be McCain's strategically-timed vice-presidential announcement. Planned for August 29, the day after Obama's INVESCO triumph-of-the-will acceptance speech, a solid veep selection for the GOP will tamp down public enthusiasm for the Democrats and shift the campaign narrative back to Obama's failure to pull out a big lead in public opinion.

Latest polling shows the presidential horse race holding steady. Today's Washington Post poll, conducted before the announcement of Biden as running mate, has Obama up four points among likely voters, which is just a little better than the rolling average we've seen this last couple of weeks.

The selection of Biden does little to help Obama in public opinion. On top of that, Biden's selection has enraged top Clinton advisors, so Tuesday night's Hillary Clinton speech to the delegates may be one of the most consequential turning points in this campaign.