I think some of the critics here are bing unnecessarily shrill and insulting. However, it's the tone and the way the personalized their criticism I object to. I don't buy the central premise of this post either. So what if blacks already register and vote in the same proportions as whites? Whites aren't doing that well either. That's a low bar. So what if blacks register at 70%? That's 30% unregistered. That's a whole lot of votes. Even if this effort doesn't win more electoral votes, it isn't just about the president. Mybe they'll win a Senate seat, or a House seat, or more state legislative seats. A seat here and a seat there, and suddenly there's a Democratic majority.

Seriously, Minnesota Democrats got a veto-proof majority in the state senate by winning special elections consistently for a few years. The last few seats to get there were all special elections. The extra effort to find some more voters in supposedly Republican districts made the difference.

Just to reduce the panic about the polls being close, remember the polls during the primaries that compared opponents across parties? Any Democrat beat any Republican, except McCain, who kept it close regardless of the Democrat. The public likes McCain and doesn't connect issues with candidates in more than the broadest sense. That's why not only does McCain have to be individually knocked down, but he needs to be hit on national security and foreign policy. We all know McCain doesn't know much, but people who also don't know much think he's an expert, and that includes most campaign reporters unfortunately. He gets away with proclaiming himself an expert as he shows his ignorance. He gets away with saying "this isn't bluster" before he blusters. I recently saw an interview he did with Letterman in 2001 where he mentioned anthrax, and aside from how he had heard about this, I noticed he spoke in generalities and platitudes like he does now. It's not age: he really doesn't know much.

When McCain at Saddleback that only America had made sacrifices for other people's freedom, my wife and I both said bull---- (we didn't speak dashes) at the TV. Our first thought was the non-US troops who have been in Afghanistan fighting by our side since the beginning, including French troops.

The fact is the anti-French attitude of many Americans, and seemingly all conservatives, is just another form of bigotry.

It looks like the resources will be there that we don't have to choose between trying to win the South or trying to win without. We can win without, but we don't have too. Success in building local and state parties can be self-sustaining.

Maher's comments were echoed by Zogby, whose poll showing McCain ahead by showed Obama suffered losses in the bas: Democrats, liberals, and youth. The only reason he would lose the base is by shifting to the center, like Maher described. If Obama went after McCain hard, he would make the base happy, and might erode McCain's hero image. People who aren't strongly inclined ideologically tend to separate candidates from issues, often not knowing or even caring what candidates think. That's why character attacks work. There's an opening with appearance McCain cheated at the forum, the (allegedly --- be sure) changing cross in the dirt story that might not even be his, changing which team's starting lineup he gave to his captors, plus the things Joan mentioned like the rape joke and attacking Chelsea Clinton. Personally, I'd like to see Obama go after McCain for interfering in Georgia, and maybe telling Georgia to attack against the advice of the Bush administration. Just following up could make the press start asking. It's like Democrats can't learn that they have to make an issue of something first before the mainstream media will pick it up.

People who want to get rid of caucuses don't understand what they're for. They aren't just about picking presidential candidates. They're about starting the process of picking candidates at all levels, right down to city council. They're also about party building by recruiting people to be volunteers for ongoing activities. Those people who do the work that keeps local parties going tend to start in caucuses. So what if local party activists are most likely to show up? Those are the people doing the work, so why shouldn't they get more to say? All anyone has to do to become a supposed insider is show up and raise your hand when volunteers are needed.

We might also notice that Iowa aside, caucus states were spared the TV ad blitz. It's very tough to buy a caucus. Instead, candidates have to appeal on a substantive level, not merely on who raises the most money and runs the slickest ads.

I just commented somewhere, I think on Joan Walsh's blog, complaining about how Obama refuses to hit McCain on this character stuff. I partially retract because this is the sort of thing I want him to do, but doing it once and just in Georgia isn't enough.

I find Obama's statement reassuring because the criticisms he makes of Cheney are the same one made in the liberal blogosphere liberal talk-radiosphere(is that a word? sorry if it isn't)