Schaller writes:

As for all those "50-state strategy" advocates: They seem to be deafeningly silent now, don't they? It was stupid to believe in such fantasies in the first place.

Kind of harsh, don't you think? "Stupid"? "Fantasies"?

I can't speak for any other 50-state strategy advocates, but I do have a couple of observations for Mr. Schaller:

• Democrats won 3 red districts in special elections; would this have happened without a "50-state strategy"?
• After 8 years of heinously bad Republican rule, is it unreasonable--not even "stupid", but simply unreasonable--to think that maybe this time, the people would get the fact that Republicans are lying to them about issues critical to their lives, and perhaps consider voting differently?
• Whether he expands the map or not, Obama's 50-state push has already forced McCain to spend money in states that should long ago have been "gimmes" for him. In what way is this bad?

I have been silent because I am still waiting to see how the strategy plays out, something we won't know until November (if then).

It's a bad mistake to draw sweeping conclusions for so little data (or as my Dad used to say, "When they call it "clam chowder," that doesn't mean they should only use 1 clam"). The evidence isn't in. And it's certainly not in enough to assign people who wanted to--or continue to push for--the 50-state strategy "stupid." Frankly, it's obnoxious.

Wait, Mr. Schaller: if the 50-state strategy is "stupid" and the result of "fantasies," why should the Obama campaign bother with Indiana? I thought that the 2008 Presidential election "is not going to be a map-expanding election." After all, Indiana hasn't been contested by the Democrats for 40 years.

Seriously, I think you should reconsider counting out the 50-state strategy until all the facts are in sometime in November. This situation in Indiana would appear to be another good demonstration that it's not all stupidity and fantasies.

As watching a George W. Bush speech is akin to being forced to watch slow-motion car collision test run films while clamped into a Clockwork Orange forced viewing device, I have no intention of sitting there and letting Our Fearless Leader's empty phrases, malapropisms, extraneous observations, attempts at blame-shifting, self aggrandizement, and collection of cliches (at least we won't hear "return on success" again) drift over me like a malodorous cloud from an exploded toxic chemical manufacturing site.

No; I'll read about the car-wreck of the speech later. My prediction: almost everyone will call him "irrelevant" except his ever-shrinking circle of syncophants (Karl Rove, Katheryn-Jean Lopez, Hugh Hewitt, Bill Kristol, et. alia). He will cry "Wolf!" again, demand Congress do his bidding again, and demand a blank check and unfettered power for his Administration. Again.

Let's just pray to God that this time he doesn't get it.

Actually, Glenn, as reluctant as I always am to engage in tinfoil hat theorizing, if this year's election is as close as the last two, a brigade of Army regulars would be enough to throw an election if they were only deployed in (say) certain select voting districts in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, or Wisconsin.

I completely agree on the danger really being in the precedent that is being set, but I wish I could be as sanguine as you that the Republicans, in collusion with this corrupt Administration populated by admitted war criminals, isn't planning something nefarious.

It enhances her foreign policy credentials because . . . "It certainly does."

I tell you three times, and what I tell you three times is true!

It is often the case that reading a transcript doesn't provide you with all the context you need to evaluate an interaction. In most cases in my experience, the transcript falls far short of showing the participants in their best light; the conversational halts, pauses, body language, and so on are lost, and often important.

In Palin's case, the less you actually hear of her voice, the less you see of her, the better; she comes across far better in the transcript. And quite frankly, she comes across badly there, so that's really saying something.

Who on Earth, in their right mind, considers this woman qualified to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency? I would feel more confidence with Steven Colbert, or Rachel Maddow, or hell, Brad friggin' Pitt. It continues to astonish me that McCain isn't getting blown out.

Schaller has been nothing but dismissive and condescending about the left's 5-state strategy (deriding it as "stupid" and a "fantasy"). While it is too soon to know for sure, the current turn of the polls certainly leads one to believe that the south isn't as solid as it once was. Further, just last night on MSNBC, Chuck Todd noted that Indiana was in play for "the first time in 40 years."

If the 50-state strategy turns out on November 5 to be crap, I will publicly eat crow. I hope Schaller has the courage to do the same, should the reverse be true.

I read this same kind of silliness when the Red Sox were in the midst of their improbable drive in 2004. Sox fans are addicted to losing; Sox fans will lose their identity; blah blah blah. And you know what? When they won, I was happy. And I'm still happy.

Somehow, I really doubt that the majority of Cubs fans will be sad if they finally win it all this year. Hey, call me crazy.