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But I'm certainly not looking this gift horse in the mouth. For weeks now, I have been practically begging someone -- ANYone -- to ask John McCain this exact question: "How many houses do you and your wife own?" Politico finally asked. John McCain blew the answer. Yet another gaffe from McCain, but the difference this time is that the media chose to run with it.
One can almost picture the scene -- a high-level campaign strategy session inside Barack Obama's headquarters. "So everyone's saying Obama should fight back against McCain's smears... how should we go about doing that?" "Hey, what about... I don't know... maybe highlighting the really stupid things McCain says on the campaign trail -- almost on a daily basis?!?"
It's time once again to take a look at how the electoral math is shaping up for Barack Obama and John McCain. While the news this time around isn't all that great for Obama, I wanted to take another of these snapshots of the polls -- before the running mates are announced and before the conventions happen -- in order to provide a statistical baseline to see how big a "bump" in the polls either candidate will get in the next few weeks. My analysis in short: while the news isn't dire quite yet, Obama could certainly use such a bump at this point.
Many people have been saying for the past few weeks (myself included) that Barack Obama needs to stand up for himself a little bit more, and strongly counter the negative attacks coming from John McCain. I have also suggested (and I'm not alone in this one either) that Obama needs to start actually taking the fight to McCain, by painting a picture of McCain for America to see -- to counteract who the McCain campaign would like you to believe John McCain is.
Thanks to all for playing, and feel free to add more, as it's quite likely some of these winners will be found to have used humor-enhancing substances. Ahem.
So it's official -- Hillary Clinton's name will be formally introduced for a roll-call vote at the Democratic Convention. She will be given her due respect, as will her supporters. Will this be enough for her voters to (finally) come around to supporting Barack Obama, or will the all-but-admitted fact that she's not going to be the vice presidential nominee further embitter the Hillary die-hards? In other words, is this going to be a good thing or a bad thing for Obama? Only time will tell, unfortunately.
Because while the mainstream media has led a mighty effort to trivialize this election, they are now going to have to forego the John Edwards stories and the Paris Hilton stories, and start some actual reporting. The confluence of events demands it: here is a genuine foreign policy crisis that nobody foresaw -- right in the middle of the campaign -- and America deserves the answer to the question "What would you do as president?" in order to make an informed decision as to which man we want to lead us for the next four years.
Because if you really look at the polls, you'll soon notice that about a third of America just isn't paying all that much attention.
Today's Friday Talking Points column is a bit more free-form than normal. Very quickly, we will award this week's prizes, and then get on to the heart of the matter -- trying to convince Barack Obama that it's time to get up off the mat, dust yourself off, and throw a few punches. Because although Obama has a commanding lead on the state-wide level, that lead could evaporate quickly under a barrage of slime and mud from the McCain camp. Democrats across the country are holding their collective breath, waiting to see whether Obama will wind up being another Kerry, or wind up being another Bill Clinton. Kerry famously "was above" responding to August attacks. Clinton had a War Room which responded forcefully to attacks (even the true ones -- remember the phrase "bimbo eruption" from the 1992 campaign?) immediately, and within the same news cycle. Kerry, of course, lost. Clinton won.
It's time once again to take a look at the Electoral College math from state-level polling. Nationwide polls are not completely meaningless, but they are pretty irrelevant -- because that's not how we elect a president. You have to win enough states to get more than half the electoral votes in the Electoral College. While many would like to change this system, it's what we've got for the 2008 election, and so looking at the state-level polling is much more important to figure out where the race is right now, and what the trends are.