I could not agree more.

Now that Obama is finally free to drop the gloves, (and we have already seen previews of that in the last week) it is going to get very difficult for the senior senator from Arizona. On top of that, if HRC is as gracious as I know she can be, come Saturday, and the party finishes aligning now for this fight, it will be a VERY difficult battle for McCain. Despite the hand-wringing worrying from the very talented Bowers at openleft in his daily maps, I think we are surging toward an electoral blowout come November. 330 EVs or more for Obama. And, yes, I know that will take work. Which me, my wife, and my children will continue to put in from here in Western Tennessee. And there were will be tens of thousands like us, volunteering and putting in the work in the months ahead.

But, this is happening. A realignment election is upon us, and not a moment too soon. When this party sweeps to 60+ senators (and that will happen) and a crushing majority in the House (count on it) along with a talented and extremely intelligent President and cabinet, this country will FINALLY be ready to meet the very grave challenges in front of it. The environmental crisis the is enveloping the world. The dependence on oil. The need to articulate a plan to find alternative sources of fuel NOW. The collapsing economy. Restoring America's standing in the world as a partner, rather than a bully. The need for educational reform that will help pull our nation's schools out of the chasm into which they have fallen. All of it. We are on the precipice of all sorts of potential disasters, and this country is desperate for this party to take control and deal with the issues in the manner of rational, intelligent adults, rather than as petulant spoiled children on a tantrum, which is how the Bushies and repubs have spent their years in power.

This nation is about to watch its leadership grow up, and have it happen overnight. Oh yes, a tide is coming, and I can't wait to work as hard as I can to make sure it is as broad and powerful and sweeping a tide as possible. Time to get busy, helping to set things right for this country, and the world. I can't wait.

Absotively, HC!

We must be informers and correctors of the misinformation and lies that are out there.

I've found this: the more I know my shit about a candidate, the more likely those who may begin in disagreement start to listen. That's one of the reasons I love this site so much. We get a lot of useful information here.

Now, go do the penance Publicola prescribed! ;-)

I say the number 1 reason he beats mcbush is who he is. #2 money and #3 the king. You could also throw who mcbush is into that mix as well. He really has been looking and sounding awful lately.

Here is a nice rundown of McSame's problems with gaffes:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/04/mccains-day-marked-by-fal_n_105283.html

But a more worrisome issue for the McCain campaign may just be that a theme is emerging, both within the media and political circles, that the Arizona Republican has a penchant for playing lose with the facts. Indeed, last week, McCain lost crucial news cycles after he falsely claimed that force levels in Iraq had been drawn down to pre-surge levels and then, instead of admitting he misspoke, said the whole thing was a debate over verb tense. This, in turn, came after the Senator claimed, again falsely, that Iran was training al-Qaeda in Iraq, when in fact the two groups are religious and political adversaries.

All told, the gaffes have provided Obama an opportunity to re-frame a man who is best known as a "straight talker," a image battle McCain can ill afford to lose.

That is my thought as well. Ditto for Michigan. I am not saying that McCain has no chance there (quite the contrary, of all the Republicans who ran, he is the best positioned to flip MI red), but I think that the makeup of the MI electorate favors the democrat right out of the gate. I think that the tendency to label it a toss up stems from some misbegetton idea that the January primary fiasco will really sour people on the democratic party, but there just is no evidence to back this up.

Good observation. I suspect that was intentional, and they put MO leaning McCain column and FL a tossup to get those numbers to even out.

This is opinion, albeit well-informed opinion. I prefer data, such as Votemaster Andrew Tanenbaum's site, which ranks states by the margin of the most recent poll(s) in each state. That site's main weakness is that some of the most recent polls are quite old. If you count "barely" and "tied" as tossups, and allocate the rest to the candidate, you get:
Obama 244
McCain 202
toss-up 92

Most recent polling gives Obama CO, IA, NH, PA, and WI (which Todd currently rates as toss-ups), and it gives McCain FL and NV. It also would put SC, CT, and MO in the toss-up column. Personally, I doubt SC or CT will be in play, but MO sure seems like a serious battleground state. I like electoral-vote.com because he has a strict algorithm that is applied to whatever data he gets from polls, and thus is unbiased, in that the results only change because of published polls, not because of Tanenbaum's personal opinions.

Bob Novak did a breakdown last week where he put each state in somebody's column, and said it was currently 270-268 McCain. Novak certainly reports from a certain perspective, and while one can quibble over who is more likely to win some particular state, everything he put in a given column was plausible. His bias lies more in his snarky commentary on certain states than in the calling them.

All three sources agree that as of today, this race is close.

Minnesota also has the longest streak voting for the Dem nominee than any other state in the nation. People like him up there, and the Edwards types like Oberstar will stump for him up on the Range.

Also, once you get the college kids excited in MN, you not only get 10 EVs for Obama, but a Senator Al Franken to boot!

Absolutely!

PLEASE locate your nearest Obama or County Dems office and offer your time! I'm so excited that I won't have to beg people this election!

Remember also that some states have programs that work to elect all Dems, so sign on to knock doors/make calls with them if you're looking for a resounding Democratic victory this year. It's like killing 5 or 6 Republicans with the same stone!

You know I don't remember that. I thought that it was pretty close at this point. Also, kerry screwed up the swift boat crap, which I don't expect obama to make the same type of mistake.