So, the Conventions are coming up. Obama's speech is going to be on the anniversary of MLK's death, it's hard to imagine how that will go over. But McCain has announced he's announcing his Veep choice the day after, which is canny, it helps to steal a newscycle.

Anyway, there's been a huge rush of support in the last couple of days for Alaskan governor Sarah Palin. Again, it looks canny. She's photogenic, she unsettles the Hilary types (and if there's much of her nonsense at the convention, that could become the narrative), and she counters the very serious prospect of Alaska flipping. You heard it here first.

Oh, and the reatively recent Dem frontrunner holds an obvious attraction to those who wish Obama wouldattack back.

It's the expression on his face at the end of that that makes it, for me.

Toro De France wrote:

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But McCain has announced he's announcing his Veep choice the day after, which is canny, it helps to steal a newscycle.

Not so sure about that. If it's a "holy shit" choice for VP--a lot more talk about Hillary in the last few days, even the level-headed FiveThirtyEight is talking about Gore as being not in the realm of fantasy--I think McCain might not get the attention he's hoping for, especially if it's a bland choice.

There are four "Holy shit" candidates, I think. Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and Edwards.

No, I jest. There is not enough holy shit in the vatican stables for that one.

The other one is generally thought of as a Republican, but he's a disaffected one. It's been an open secret that he favours Obama, and that he's been thinking of endorsing him, yet it hasn't happened yet. He has moral authority, and he's virtually peerless on foreign policy.

Really, the only problem with Colin Powell is that he's too black for an Obama ticket.

See, now I said that months ago. And was pilloried, in part on the grounds that Obama was so far ahead he didn;t need to pander to Republicans.

Anyone seen the polls lately? The benefits of a 50-state strategy over the strategy of carpet-bombing Ohio and the Appalachians don't look quite so obvious anymore.

Not sure McCain's timing of announcing his running mate is going to be clever. If Obama really performs at the convention, the talk is going to be about him. As has been pointed out, McCain's sidekick would need to be a massive surprise. If not, there may well be some shoulder shrugging.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Obama's running mate could be that Kaine fellow.

Like Toro, I think Biden is the most likely, and I'd quite like to see him picked. I wouldn't choose him as nominee - he's far too fond of his own voice - but he'd make a reasonable Veep and a decent campaigner. He can play the attack dog while Obama stays out of the fray, as he seems intent on doing. The only problem, as one blog pointed out, is that it would make it hard for Obama to use his vote against the AUMF as an example of his good judgement, since Biden voted for it.

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The benefits of a 50-state strategy over the strategy of carpet-bombing Ohio and the Appalachians don't look quite so obvious anymore.

Ahhh, life imitating The West Wing.

Over at Hullabaloo, dday has a great post on Obama's ground game. This issue, more than any other, is why I like him as a candidate and why the nearly tied polls don't worry me as much as some. Obama not only understands the importance of ground work, in a way that Democrats haven't for decades, he actually does it. That (and the war, of course) is how he won the primary in the face of the party establishment support for Clinton, and it's how he'll win the general election. McCain's thrown everything he has at Obama, which isn't much, and Obama is still ahead and still perceived more favourably. Obama hasn't begun to define McCain on his own terms, which is a big mistake, but there's still plenty of time and money to do it. And most importantly, the ground work won't just help Obama, it will help down-ballot Democrats across the country and help insure the Dems get an unfilibusteralbe majority. Normally I'd be pretty worried about an all-Dem government, and I don't doubt it will cause some bad legislation, but given the utterly bankrupt state of the Republican party at the moment, it's way better than the alternative. As of July 22, Republicans had blocked 94 cloture motions in the 110th Congress, 33 more than any previous session.

Toro De France wrote:

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Really, the only problem with Colin Powell is that he's too black for an Obama ticket.

The other problem with Colin Powell is that he is implicated up to his bollocks in the Iraq war.

Toro De France wrote:

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Obama's speech is going to be on the anniversary of MLK's death, it's hard to imagine how that will go over.

One view is that if the American public don't vote for a candidate who can transcend the laws of space-time and travel backwards in time to April 4th just to make a speech, then the Democrats should pack up and go home.

Another view is that this kind of temporal tinkering proves that Obama is too elite for the American public. "He's not rooted in today's America", they'll say.

Biden has told the reporters staked outside his house "I'm not the guy."

Ann Coulter will opine that breaking the laws of space-time proves that Obama's not a law and order candidate.

Lou Dobbs: "if he can't safeguard the boundaries of space-time, how can he safeguard the country's boundaries from illegal immigrants"?

Gordon Brown will praise Obama's move backwards in time as "a great leap forwards, demonstrating the dynamism of the American economy", and will look into a crash program of his own that would entail going back to last October, only this time dropping the goddamn writ.

The New Statesman will denounce Brown's speech as another example of the creeping Americanization of Great Britain under Labour.

I get it. (whispers) March on Washington.