Great post, good analysis.

I agree that the public doesn't necessarily know what people who obsessively read the blogs know. I think that a lot of people know what Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric and, (sadly but hilariously), Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert tell them. Or maybe they catch a few minutes of Headline News here and there, but for the most part, I think all that most people see is the headline, like "Obama Can't Close the Deal" and "Another Big State for Clinton" and they see the argument, usually presented uncritically because the only primary material we get is from the victory speech where she says she's the only one that can win. Most people don't have the inclination to analyze it any further. That's not a criticism; if I see, for example, someone saying the Lakers can't play defense, I don't wonder if it's borne out by the numbers or if it's a two-week trend based on the fact that they've won a couple of 120-116 games lately. But that's because I don't really care about the Lakers that much. I'm only tangentially interested in the NBA, so if I see something at a high level like that, I'm more likely to accept it uncritically.

I think it's the same reason why Swift-Boating works. Sure, you can spend hours upon hours unpacking every lie, exposing every connection to the Bush campaign (and let's face it, John Kerry could spend hours ordering Chinese food, much less explaining a complex situation), but the people who that sort of tactic is aimed at are the ones who hear "John Kerry-not so much a hero" and just accept it because they're only sort-of paying attention.

Now before the Clinton people show up at my door with torches, I'm by no means equating the "big state" argument with Swift-Boating. It's just smart tactics to boil your argument waayyyy down so that by the time your opponent is done refuting it, nobody is listening anymore. Personally, as an Obama supporter (I'm sorry, I mean cult member) I'd love to see him just start saying "it's over; she can't catch me," and let her start explaining whether or not that's accurate. By the time she gets through the laundry list of FL and MI and the popular vote and the superdelegates, the audience has moved on to the story about the kitten who dialed 911 or whatever.

Doesn't it seem like they're playing chess and we're playing checkers?

I mean, Hamas says something nice about Obama, suddenly Obama is the Hamas candidate, while the Hamas advisor snickers at us, wondering "did they really buy that? Really, it's that easy?"

I'll make it very simple...the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend, and the friend of your enemy is not necessarily your enemy, especially when that enemy may be trying to fool you.

It's just frustrating that we might get four more years of this crap.

Here and at TPM, but if the full text (and video) is true to the spirit, then I think this is the game-changer. This is the exhale moment for Obama supporters, because I think tomorrow we start to see the polls in IN and NC climb, and we'll look back on this, not the speech in Philly, as the moment when it all finally came together.

At least I hope.

Frankly, I think this was the first time in a while, Joan, that you've been fair on this issue. Perhaps a function of my partisanship, but that's my view.

Watched the video. Good stuff. Tied his repudiation of Wright into his larger campaign. I think this is case closed, because he's making clear that the "20 years" argument is moot.

I don't think this has been covered, but it's worth mentioning that polls this far out from the general are difficult to trust for the simple reason that right now, all 3 candidates are fighting two opponents. Sen. McCain seems to be content to let the Dems fight it out, and isn't really running against either one of them in particular, though he mentions Obama more by name. Sen. Obama seems to have pivoted somewhat to McCain, running against him as much as he is against Sen. Clinton. Sen. Clinton has concentrated most of her efforts on Sen. Obama, and has only tangentially gone after Sen. McCain (and only after indirectly praising him earlier).

So what we really don't know is how these numbers will move once we've got a true one on one. There exists in any of these hypothetical polls the possibility that some poll respondents will, as a way to make their candidate seem more electable, claim that they'd cross over to the Republican side if they don't get their candidate. It's probably not widespread, and it may happen on both sides, but when you're already extrapolating from a small sample like these polls do, little things like actually knowing which candidates are going to be on the ballot are a helpful thing to getting actual results.

Now we know why Clinton has been courting the blue-collar vote. Those goal posts are heavy, and you'd get really tired carrying them around if you were sipping a latte at the same time.