...David Axelrod. He has arranged for Obama to shoot a few 3-pointers at the Olympic Men's Basketball Tournament, August 10-24. (For the USA team, I believe.) So, not to worry. Obama Fatigue will be squelched just in time for the Democratic Convention, August 25-28.

By custom, the incumbent president's party holds its convention after the challenging party. This year, the Democrats' convention is first, and will be held in late August because they want to hold the convention after the 2008 Summer Olympics and want to "maximize momentum for our Democratic ticket in the final months of the Presidential election".

This shows courage and real leadership! The world will be watching. I mean, what if he misses the basket?

...Obama doesn't "reach out," he belatedly reacts only when he's helped create another untenable situation for himself. Obama is incapable, at this point, of pulling the party together. His catharsis-dissing comment didn't help him one bit. (When he's unscripted, he's tone deaf. He lacks the ability to show compassion, IMO.)

Obama's reaching out to Bill Clinton, finding him a place at the convention, and pulling the party together after a few months in which people on both sides behaved badly, could go a long way to accomplishing the same thing. I hope it is really going to happen.

Well, Joan, just hop on that "hope" bandwagon! Hope all you want. Fulfillment of that hope is quite another kettle of fish.

We Americans are such prudes and moralizers. I wish we'd grow up already!

But...a question, about a hypothetical? What would be the reaction from the Obama fans if it were to be revealed that Obama had an affair?

Would the reaction be.... oh, that is change we can believe in.... That's different...he's so charismatic, that the women just fling themselves at him....it wasn't his fault, she seduced him....the Clintons made him do it?

Looks like Governor David Paterson (D-NY) and his wife, Michelle, had the right idea. They both admitted to unfaithfulness in their "different kind of marriage" as the Guv called it, effectively shutting down the loud-mouthed finger-pointers before they gained any traction.

Now, they live happily everafter, so they say.

End of that story.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/462/story/116405.html

I'm not certain it's accurate, but I have heard that Teresa Heinz-Kerry was the first spouse of a presidential nominee to be a featured speaker at a party's national convention.

Well, we all see how well that turned out! Her speech was generally well-received, but then it backfired. For a brief, fleeting moment, she was seen as an asset to John Kerry's campaign but by giving her a speaking slot at the convention, she became fair game -- to Kerry's detriment.

Michelle Obama had better keep it short, sweet and totally innocuous or she'll provide fodder for disparate dissenters who see her as whiney, unlikeable, arrogant, and "not-like-me."

Personally, I see no value for Barack's electoral chances in providing Michelle a speaking position at the convention. To paraphrase her husband's opinion about another strong woman, "Michelle is likeable enough" but not so likeable that she'll enhance his standing.

For many people, it has nothing to do with race. It's that they believe that the Dems DID NOT nominate the best candidate. But, ya can't talk about that, so they figure, let's blame Obama's stagnation in the polls on race...

However, with that said, the jailing of Detroit's Democratic mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, who is an Obama supporter certainly won't help Obama win Michigan.

Obama should be trouncing John McCain in Michigan, but he's not. With supporters like Kilpatrick, no wonder.

...it's the stooooooooopidest, most asinine, self-centered, counter-productive, typically jackass example of Obama's so-called judgment to allow this to happen.

Of course, he might change his mind. He's been known to flip-flop once he's backed into a corner and he finds it hurts HIM.

Gawd. It gets worse by the day.

There aren't many swing voters (that I know of) in my social realm, but I know of one who was willing to tell me what he thought of Obama's chances of winning based on swing voters' supposed frustration with the Iraq War costs.

He said that if McCain can paint Obama as an overall Typical Democratic Party Big Spender and that their taxes will increase under Obama, the fiscal cost of the Iraq War will not influence them one iota to vote for Obama. As for the human cost, he figures that many Americans are willing to accept a remarkable death toll if the USA is seen as winning. So, if McCain can convince the low-information voter that we are "winning," (or, at minimum, not losing) the swing voter will not pull the lever for Obama based on the human toll either.

It's only August. The swing voters who now claim they are voting for Obama have lots of time to swing into the McCain column -- afterall, a swing voter has no allegiance to any political party and makes unpredictable decisions that can swing the outcome of an election one way or the other.

Don't count the chickens yet.