Today's Gallup poll,  see the site, shows Obama at 48% and McCain at 42%. UPDATED

The thought of McCain trying to appeal to young people just makes me laugh hard.

Ralph Ellison, named by his father after Ralph Waldo Emerson, won the National Book Award in 1953 for his novel, The Invisible Man.

Recently Markos provided us with his explanation of why he would not send his contribution to Sen Obama because of his disagreement with Sen. Obama's decision to support the FISA legislation.  Well, today part of that story surfaced again in the mainstream media.

In light of the controversy of Obama supporting the FISA "compromise" it must be said that many presidents who we now see as heroes were a disappointment to those who wanted the president to go further. This was true with Lincoln and Roosevelt. I think that it is important that we keep things in perspective in how social change occurs.

This is the technology age and a technology election.
Youtube is not John McCain's friend.
Nor is the actual record of McCain.

I want to float something so obvious that it is probably already in place.
Even the existence of the remotest possibility that this isn't in place makes me want to put the thought out here.

The Republicans can still win, McCain can still win, and the destructive deadly policies of this Bush Administration can still continue.

Think of this, as you call for your donations back, as you attack Senator Obama, rightfully or not, and relegate him to the "Boy Junior Senator from Illinois."

The results of November are not set in stone. There is still a long fight, a long battle left, if we are to take back even a part of Washington for the people who have dedicated themselves to this movement and who have invested so much of their time, their efforts, and their dwindling finances in a common effort to elect a man the next President of the United States. A man, who not 200 hundred years ago would have been brought to this country as a slave bound in shackles and mastered into servitude, a man brave enough to speak to our hopes and dreams for this country, a man who has demonstrated his political abilities, in only a short time, in the halls of national government, a man, who despite the racial divides that still exist in this country, who despite the political divides that tear us apart, who despite the dangers that threaten our country, continues to send forth a message of peace in our time.

My dad used to have this old boat my grandfather has used to troll for shrimp.  On the back it had a little Johnson 75 hp motor, which is perfect for trolling, but not very great for water skiing.  After we would fish or troll, my dad would let me and my brother out the back for some ski time.  Because of the little motor, getting up on skis involved being dragged for about 80 yards underwater before the motor had enough power to get you on top.  With our media today, let me warn you, that's what this summer is going to be like.

Like anything in life, perspective is important.

Dear Senator Obama,

So many words.

So many symbols.

So many twists and turns.

So much fog.

So much noise.

So much Fox and Murdoch and CNN and in_deed SO MUCH LYING.

So much Pelosi and So much Reid. Senator Obama let me try to help you and your highly paid experts grok some very simple facts regarding ....

We tried this last night and while we got a lot of support didn't get any donations. We have 4 candidates on this list and hopefully someone just got a little extra money that they can donate. If you can't give 17.76 break it up and do 8.88 for two months.

You may be upset with Obama on FISA right now; however we believe that it is more important to have a Democrat in the White House than to prove a point and be stuck with McCain. That is why we have included him in the mix.   We don't believe it is right to pressure people into supporting anyone. That's not the point of this diary.

Click here on the thermometer to give on Independence Day if you are West Coast , Mountain or Central. If you are where it is already July 5, we still appreciate and want your money also.

The Associated Press in an "analysis" piece where no analysis was actually conducted, proceded to blast Barack Obama for alleged "centrist positioning" that "gives the GOP ammo" to make the flip-flopping charge that undermined Kerry four years ago.

Here's the laundry list of supposed flip-flops:

It's February 1st, 2009. President Obama's historic inauguration, and dramatic address to the nation went off without a hitch. The new Administration has sent cabinet nominations to the 111th Congress, and larger Democratic majorities assure them a smooth confirmation. The President's agenda is off to good start.

Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of energetic Obama volunteers, from the netroots and grassroots, have been wrapping up their celebrations (some have been drunk off their ass since election night), and nobody wants it to end.  New friendships and a new sense of purpose are apparent to everyone. The World Has Changed.  America has its first President born of the Space-Age; its first African American in the White House. Not since 9/11 has anything happend that suddenly made things so ... different.

The campaign, which began an entire Moore Doubling ago, is now over. The world, country, and volunteers are networked and connected as never before. Not just blogs, forums and websites, these people have actually ventured out of their homes, and connected in realspace, even meeting each other in person. Nothing like it has ever happend before. Where should it go from here?  Some ideas...

Forget FISA! Obama’s task in right now is to deliver us a victory!

I applaud all of you for writing letters to the Obama campaign, voicing your objections to FISA. I think it’s great that some of you have taken to calling the campaign headquarters or posting your points of view on the blogosphere. That is what democracy is all about. Constructive criticism is helpful for Obama. It will make him and better candidate and a better president

       That was the statement made by Mr. Williams, a man I registered to vote today.  This afternoon, we held a small voter registration canvass in a local neighborhood in our county. We decided to do this at the last minute.  The event didn’t look very promising at the start.  It was scheduled for 2:00 PM and no one showed up until 2:15.  We had a total of seven people.  Except for two of us, everyone was a new volunteer.  After a 15 minute training session we all set out down a street adjacent to the park where we met. No one answered the door at several of the houses I went to.  A man was sitting on the porch of the next house; he looked surprised and not too happy to see me approach him.  I told him who I was and that I was registering people to vote.  As I got closer, he saw that I had an Obama 08 sticker on my shirt.

Think of this as a neurophysiological analysis of the winning Obama strategy.

Amidst all the excitement about FISA and refinements of the Obama position on withdrawal from Iraq, I think people are missing the essence of the Obama strategy.  

This is particularly true in the online world where people actually care about issues and policy.

Obama's single minded goal on his course to the White House is simple:  stay cool, stay boring, say nothing, do nothing, threaten nothing.

His goal, it seems clear, is to become an empty vessel, a mirror on to which people can project their own fantasies about who an American president is, what he should look like, how he should sound.   You can't be that mirror, that empty vessel, if you say things that enable others to define you as "controversial" or "flip flopping" and if you become perceived that way.  You've got to keep people's limbic systems (the fight or flight response system) quiet, so that they can hear your discourse, keep in mind their aspirations for a better America, and accept you as a President.

Hello fellow kossacks!

I noticed Swing State Projects Q2 sen/cong. fundraising piece, and so I immediately wondered about Obama.

Usually; at least during the primaries, Obama released their; usually phenominal, numbers in the first couple of days of the new quarter. That always gave him a bump and a talking point.

However, so far we have not heard a peep about Q2 $$$!

Anyone have ideas about why or when they will release?
Guesses about $$$ totals??
Thanks.

Rumors are flying around the blogosphere about Obama possibly moving his DNC acceptance speech from the Pepsi Center to 78,000 seat Invesco Field.  Now there's word out that John McCain may be looking to move his RNC acceptance speech from the 19,000 seat Target Center to the Academy of Holy Angels, one of the finest christian high schools in the Twin Cities metro area.

What if, rather than just thinking about how a VP candidate balances a Presidential candidate's policy and experience, we paid more attention to how the candidates balance each other in their campaign roles?

The way I see it, a political campaign seems to be a lot like a ship: we have an engine (enthusiasm/motivation), a rudder (campaign and policy directives), a keel (respect and experience), the wind and sea currents (media coverage and public sentiment) and the occasional storms (scandals). In the case of the McCain campaign this year, we also have a serious boat anchor (the Bush legacy).