Colorado

Rasmussen. 7/21. MoE 4.5% (6/17 results)

The Pollster.com composite is 47.6 Obama, 44.9 McCain.

Michigan

EPIC/MRA. 7/13-15. MoE 4% (5/19-22 results)

The Pollster.com composite is 47.6 Obama, 39.1 McCain.

Florida

Rasmussen. 7/22. MoE 4.5% (6/26 results)

American Research Group. 7/19-21. MoE 4% (6/13-17 results)

Those Ras numbers are a little goofy. That's a big shift in a single month, and one seen in few other states. Then we have ARG giving us the exact opposite trendline, though we all know ARG sucks you-know-what.

Thank heavens we can fall back on the composite, which is less sensitive to wild swings and outliers. And on that front, it's really, really, really tight: 45.7 McCain, 44.9 Obama.

New Hampshire

American Research Group. 7/19-21. MoE 4% (6/13-17 results)

U of New Hampshire (PDF). 7/11-20. MoE 4.5% (4/25-30 results)

Two crappy pollsters, but let's plug their numbers into the composite anyway. Currently, it's 47.4 Obama, 40.4 McCain in New Hampshire.

Ohio

Rasmussen. 7/21. MoE 4.5% (6/17 results)

Did Ras juice their (D) sample this month? Or did Obama hit upon the holy grail of Florida and Ohio swing-state politics? I don't know if I buy these particular numbers, but there's no need to. The composite actually feels quite right: 45.9 Obama, 42.4 McCain. Give Obama the twitchy, very nervous lead. Essentially, this one's tied (like Florida, like every fucking election cycle, it seems).

Update: I reversed the Ohio numbers. It's McCain that's up.

Virginia

Public Policy Polling. 7/17-20. MoE 2.7% (6/26 results)

Just float within the MoE. The composite remains razor tight: 46.7 Obama, 44.1 McCain.

Other: Monmouth University reiterates that yes, Obama is crushing McCain in New Jersey 50-36 (PDF).

I think I just saw the first 527 ad of the 2008 campaign season.  A group calling itself "LetFreedomRingUSA.com" has a new ad out charging that Barack Obama is "worse than a flip-flopper."  If anyone has had any previous experience with these wingnuts, please enlightenment me.  In the meantime, to the fold...

Over the last few days the McCain camp has started to get desperate with all the good news for Obama. So what does a campaign run by the architect of negative campaigning do?

Do some good 'ole negative campaigning of course. Here's a recap.

Welcome back for more speculation! Today we'll continue the final elimination thread of possibilities for Obama's v.p.

This elimination series began with the bottom 14 names, and eliminates the bottom vote-getter(s) and replaces them with new name(s) from just up the list, reaveraging as we go (so each thread's bottom vote-getter[s] may not be the ones cut--who's cut will be determined by the new averages generated from this series's votes only). I hope that'll be complicated enough to dissatisfy and confuse everyone equally. I'm hoping we'll have five or six candidates left when Obama picks and see if the DKos wisdom of crowds is. It should take about 14 threads to get all of the top candidates in the poll again, out of the 28 or so total threads. Fmr. Sen. Bob Graham (FL) was eliminated in the previous round, and Sen. Claire McCaskill (MO) rotated in to replace him this time.

Please discuss any v.p. candidates in the comments. The most correct format would be to simply state their name, unless you have further comments, in which case please include them. "Oh my God, where's Jane/Johnny Politician?!" would be a bit alarmist, don't you think? I'm sure they're fine. I'm happy to hear all ideas, and of course I'm no official gatekeeper, so play nice.

(continued below the fold)

My wife is sending me wingnut emails -- but relax.  It's not as bad as it sounds:

Date: Thu, 2008 16:37:34 -0500
From: ms.dsteffen@nearbystateuniversity.edu
To: dsteffen@domain.net
Subject: FW: FW: FW: Obama – For or Against

A definite response is needed!!!!!!!!!!

Ms. dsteffen

Attachment: Obama – For or Against.doc

A response?  As you wish...

It has been a tough month of July for many of us.  We saw some blurring of the clear contrasts betweeen Obama and the Republicans with regard to FISA.  Yes, it was disappointing, and we have more work to do on that issue.

But for everyone who was disappointed then, the tables have now turned.  Obama's whirlwind tour of the Middle East and of Europe has so far shown a candidate who thinks, looks, acts and speaks like a Commander-in-Chief should.

We have seen that President Obama would restore America's stature in the world.  We have seen that President Obama would make the right choice on Iraq and Afghanistan.  We have seen that President Obama would have the respect of our Allies in Europe, of Israel and Palestine, and of our "frenemies" in the Middle East.

By contrast, we have seen that Senator McCain continues to make clear his lack of knowledge of foreign affairs in an ever more frenetic effort to blunt the Presidential momentum of the Senator from Illinois.

(more below...)

Via Politico:

UPDATE: Just over an hour after finalizing plans to visit an oil rig tomorrow, the McCain campaign has cancelled the visit.

"The meeting with Governor Jindal has been postponed and we are cancelling the trip to the rig due to weather," said spokesman MIchael Goldfarb.

McCain will now fly from Pennsylvania to Ohio.  He had originally planned to fly tonight from Pennsylvania to New Orleans to be staged there for morning departure to the rig.

The campaign declined to comment any further about the quick decision to spike the trip other than to cite the weather.

Of course, we could take the McCain campaign at its word (ha!), and assume the cancellation is due to Hurricane Dolly.

Then again, it could be attributable to the unfortunate timing of an oil rig photo op in the Gulf region on top of this semi-breaking news:

(CNN)  -- The U.S. Coast Guard has closed 29 miles of the Mississippi River from New Orleans southward after a tanker and a barge collided, spilling more than 400,000 gallons of fuel oil into the river.

The river, a major shipping route between the Midwest and Gulf of Mexico, could be closed for days during the cleanup, the Coast Guard said Wednesday.

Or the back-handed slap delivered by Bobby Jindal today, long touted as a possible VP candidate for McCain:

Wednesday morning, Jindal made perhaps his strongest statement yet regarding running for Vice President.  Appearing on "FOX and Friends", Jindal said "I'm not going to be the vice presidential nominee or vice president."

Or maybe McCain decided to just stop fighting the media juggernaut surrounding Obama's overseas trip and lay low for a while. At this point, not saying anything or doing anything seems to be the wisest campaign strategy going, given his recent newsmaking.

This story caught by Mark Nickolas over at Political Base deserves a lot more attention than it has received.  It turns out that not only is McCain getting killed by the traditional media, his advertising campaigns just aren't working, either.  Voters seem to be immune to the appeals of an angry, befuddled septuagenarian looking to preside over Bush's 3rd term.

Seriously painful, arguably pathetic:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Barack Obama is not the only presidential candidate who will be front-and-center in Berlin this Thursday. Well, sort of.

In the latest effort to counter-program Obama’s tour of Europe and the Middle East, the Republican National Committee will air radio ads promoting John McCain’s candidacy in three different Berlins: Berlin, New Hampshire; Berlin, Pennsylvania; and Berlin, Wisconsin.

Why don't McCain's campaign people just give Obama his week, let their candidate rest up, and come up with some brilliant PR moves next week when Obama's settled back in at home? Every day reveals more desperation, whining and stupid "pay attention to me!" gimmicks. This can't be helping the undecideds move his way, can it?

You gotta love Jack Cafferty sometimes.  

On the "Situation Room" he was just talking about Bush's "Wallstreet got drunk" comments and how the administration "shallowness" has created an appetite, "both here and abroad" for someone like Obama.

He then went on to how King Abdullah flew all the way back from Aspen, cutting his vacation short, just so he would have an opportunity to meet with Obama.

But his best comment was about how the King drove Senator Obama to the airport personally, and

"It must be like someone working at a nursery all week, and then finally, on Friday afternoon, they get the opportunity to talk to an adult"  

It's almost time to jump in the pool, everyone.  We're getting ready to have an adult swim!

The McCain campaign has been attacking Senator Obama's patriotism in various ways.  Here's a new ad from the Republican National Committee attacking Barack Obama for voting against funding the troops in May 2007.  

"There are few votes as important as funding our men and women in uniform. But when our military needed necessary resources, Barack Obama failed to stand up."

The Obama campaign response, after the fold.

Following yesterday's monumental screw-up by John McCain, proving once again that he either doesn't understand or has forgotten key elements about this war, McCain's campaign has responded to questions about his claim that the surge made the "Anbar Awakening" possible:

Democrats can debate whether the awakening would have survived without the surge ... but that is nothing more than a transparent effort to minimize the role of our commanders and our troops in defeating the enemy, because to credit them would be to disparage the judgment of Barack Obama and praise the leadership of John McCain.

Wrong. That is not the debate. That's a cheap strawman by the McCain campaign, has no basis in reality, and has nothing to do with what John McCain said yesterday.  

Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history.

Portraying questions about that statement as a cricicism of McCain and the troops is nearly as contemptible as McCain's recent claims that Obama "would rather lose a war than lose a campaign." The debate, the question, is, was John McCain unaware that the "Anbar Awakening" began in 2006, did he forget, or was he lying for political gain?

McCain's campaign has been complaining endlessly about the lack of media coverage they're receiving. Well, here's a chance for the media to give McCain what he's been asking for...and a chance for them to do their job.  

Apologies upfront for this being a fairly short diary but I am sick to death of Andrea Mitchell.

► With Defense Minster, Ehud Barak

*

BOOOO-YAHH!!  Let the smackdown begin.

► Whiner!!

► Too Old!!

► Too Angry!!

► Smear Merchant!!

The Village™ elders dropped an anvil on his head.

► Update: He's Losing it.
*

► First up: Jack Cafferty knee-caps McWhiner.

Cross-posted at Strategy 08.

CBS is in defense mode over its cut-and-paste McCain interview, where different answers were substituted for different questions.

"As all news organizations do with extended interviews, last night’s Obama and McCain interviews were edited to fit the available time and to give viewers a fair expression of the candidates' major differences,"  CBS spokeswoman Jennifer Farley emailed. "The full transcript and video were and still are available at cbsnews.com."

The problem is, of course, that they didn't simply edit the response, they cut in an entirely different answer.  They lied.  And they presented this lie to the American people as fact.

After months of trying to shame Obama into visiting Iraq, Obama is now on perhaps the most successful campaign week the entire campaign, and his trip was the hot media ticket. By contrast, the McCain press corps apparently numbers in the 20s.

Barack Obama has a newly chartered jumbo jet, loaded to the gills with reporters and network anchors accompanying him to the Middle East and Europe, while McCain's traveling press corps numbers only about 25, including camera crews. While CBS News anchor Katie Couric and ABC News anchor Charles Gibson are traveling with Obama, neither CBS News nor ABC News sent even a correspondent to cover McCain. (NBC News is covering both). And this is hardly unique to this week. Only the Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal among big newspapers are consistently covering McCain. NEWSWEEK almost always has a reporter on the plane, but Time and U.S. News do not.

Hmmm, who is missing from that list? It couldn't be Fox News, since we're told that Obama has been "reaching out" to them to appeal to "the middle" people pretend watch the RNC's official propaganda mouthpiece. Not that they didn't try to get a ticket on the hottest political act of the summer. Crooks and Liars has the admission via Stephen Colbert. (Really.)

video of FOX & Friends]
DOOCY: Why are you not on Barack Obama’s airplane heading to the Middle East right now?
WALLACE: Well, I called the Obama campaign several weeks ago and said that I’d like to go and my invitation has apparently been lost in the mail.
[end video]

Well played, Obama campaign.

Meanwhile, McCain left another rambling message about how none of his family will visit. No wonder Wallace is steering clear.

Believe it or not, the McCain Campaign, as reported by MSNBC, has just released a statement claiming that John McCain's timeline on the Iraq Surge vs the Sunni Awakening is the correct one.

"McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said late Tuesday, ‘Democrats can debate whether the awakening would have survived without the surge ... but that is nothing more than a transparent effort to minimize the role of our commanders and our troops in defeating the enemy, because to credit them would be to disparage the judgment of Barack Obama and praise the leadership of John McCain.’"

Are you kidding me?  It doesn't minimize our troops, McCain is minimizing the efforts and success of the Iraqis, because if they're remain "incompetent" he can have his glorious 100 Year Occupation. Problem is, they aren't incompetent and the everyone has started to realize that would be Emperor McCain isn't wearing a stitch.

The headline: "Obama tour staged for political pop"

Or, "EXTREE, EXTREE, OBAMA RUNNING FOR PREZ!"

JERUSALEM — Barack Obama doesn’t travel light.

Halfway around the world, the Obama campaign machine appears as sprawling and seamless as it is on its home turf. As the presumptive Democratic nominee tours five countries in five days, he brings an entourage that would make a pop star envious.

From the saturated media coverage to the one-on-one meetings with heads of state, the trip already had a White House feel. The scope of the traveling staff simply adds to an aura of a president-in-waiting. On Tuesday, aides attempted to invoke White House rules and traditions by requiring reporters to withhold the names of senior advisers who brief the press. But they were reminded twice by reporters that they were not in the White House and that Obama was not the president.