Barack and Michelle both spoke at the event I was at this weekend in Chicago. Michelle seemed very tired - she is a good speaker, but you could really tell that she has been campaigning hard. The travel/event schedule the linked article describes sounds brutal...

Barack on the other hand was great -- you would never have been able to tell that he had probably given the same speech hundreds of times. Funny, engaging, thoughtful... Biden also seemed like a bundle of energy. Here's hoping that the two of them can keep it up for three more weeks.

Yeah, not to mention that Obama has more campaign offices than McCain in probably 30+ states. And all of them are filled with 10 times as many people.

Nobody who reads fivethirtyeight could possibly deny the fact that McCain has no legitimate chance in this contest.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/on-road-troy-ohio.html

Seriously, this shit isn't even fair at this point. Obama has a centrally located office in a deep red town, and McCain's office nearby was closed for the weekend. There's a month to the election, and McCain is running his campaign M-F, 8-5.

The Obamicans are running scared.

We won't support NO-Bama and will re-defeat him in November !!!

@2 The key word there is legitimate. That's the only thing we Obama supporters have to worry about at this point.

John McSame is old and tired.

Very old.

And very tired.

I dunno folks. I think this contest is faa-ar from over. There's over 3 weeks left. Plenty of time for McCain to surge. Me? I'm actually feeling a little worried for Obama. I don't think time is his friend at this point.

I'm paranoid too, Brad. This isn't over until it's over.

Eli,
Check out these numbers

IT's over becaue OBama doing well on the eco. theme and McCain doing jack shit. NYT today says McC. won't even have a new economic theme this week. So he got nuttin'.

NY magazine says it all: Obama has incrorporated that Clintonesque it's the economy theme. The economic meltdown helped. fortuitously, but kudos to BHO for reacting correctly:

"If Obama wins, there will be those, no doubt, who put the victory down to just that: blind shithouse luck."

Not me, I just gave him kudos.

"Who will argue that without the financial crisis, McCain would have cleaned his clock."

Um without it it was pretty even steven and we don't know what would've happened.

"The question is how the candidates react," and Obama reacting very, very well. He's pretty much dropped all that transcendental change kmbaya shit and moved it over to (a) change (B) it's the economy stupid and (c) don't forget about health care.

"That Obama turned the crisis to his advantage reflected his skills, his temperament, and the fact that he finally found both his footing and his voice on matters economic when he needed them most.
It’s about freaking time, you might say, and you’d be right. No small part of Obama’s difficulties in slaying Hillary Clinton in the Democratic nomination contest had to do with his feebleness on economics. Not that his policies (many of them) weren’t sensible and solid. But he presented no overarching theory of the case, no potent narrative that made sense of the tidal changes rippling through the economy and framed his prescriptions in that context as sensible, indeed indispensable. Nor did he connect on an emotional level with a great many working-class voters"

a-y-u-p.

but he's overcome that. Bravo.

"Obama began to fashion a softer, calmer, more discriminating form of populism better suited to his demeanor and his intellectual convictions. He didn’t attack Wall Street wholesale, but called for its reregulation. He didn’t assail big business wantonly, but went after industries whose behavior he found egregious (oil, insurance) and loudly opposed his rival’s plans for a massive cut in corporate tax rates. He trained his fire on lobbyists and other influence peddlers. And he found a way of weaving these ideas and broader populist themes convincingly into his rhetoric—as in his speech at the Democratic National Convention, when Obama said, “We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether … the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off to look after a sick kid without losing her job—an economy that honors the dignity of work.”

Ayup. Focus on malefactors of great wealth for their malefactions, make it a moral tale, and honor those workers who play by the rules, this is how you get Joe Sixpack and lots of Americans including some who otherwise would be seduced by racism in code or overtly or by fears of terrorism etc.

So bravo Sen. Obama.

Um real clear no toss up shows him with MO again. V. good.

There.

Now, given that OBama has incorporated this whole strain of Clintonism, I say bravo. It's the policies I like, I actually care little which candidate is espousing them. So,

will you NOW join me in saying

unity y'all--

PC says not to worry. She's right for once.

obama's diet & workout regimens gives him more stamina for this crap than broken-down old man mccain. mccain's on ambien & some BS herbal supplement for 'brain health'. he can't match the energy level with bile & resentment only.

and remember the week-long vacation in hawaii when everyone was shitting themselves with worry? that was smart as fuck.