I'm getting worried too. Today McCain is going around just lying about Obama's energy plans. He says Obama is anti-nuclear (he isn't) that he's against more offshore drilling (he isn't, sadly) that he thinks people can just properly inflate their tires and gas prices will fall (have to admit, I didn't see that attack coming) and this is... all seemingly working.

Whenever MJ posts like this somebody shows up to tell him to calm down, that the sky isn't falling, that our guy is still leading in the national polls. All of that's true.

But there is something wrong -- somehow, even though McCain is, by most measures, losing, the peception is that its Obama who hasn't "sealed the deal." It doesn't make sense. If Obama hasn't sealed the deal then McCain really hasn't. But that's the perception and it lingers.

Our side really needs to start attacking McCain. If Obama can't or won't do it himself, then he needs some surrogates who will do it for him.

Obama has always only had a 50-50 chance. Just because MJ is waking up to the black tax in America is no reason for most of us to all of a sudden become up in arms.

If you recall at the beginning of this race, HRC had the majority of the black voter for just this reason, black Americans did not even believe Obama had a chance.

IA changed that!
America will vote for Obama...he should win by a landslide based on his credentials, policy platforms and superior leadership...howEVER becasue of the impact of race in America
it is highly likely he will win by 51 or 52%.

A WIN is a WIN.

Now calm down MJ..take deep breaths and as a Jewish American you should know about the depth of discrimination based on race and religion in America.

More importantly, you need to have faith based on the tremendous strides and accomplishments both by Jews and Blacks in this country in spite of those tremendous opportunities and obstacles to achievement.

So HOLD your HORSES!!

Obama is winning and he has the ground game and long term strategy to prevail.

Just stop with all the naysaying, doubting thomas crap.

Focus on Winning.

ReMEMber...obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal.

Keep your eyes on the Prize ...MJ

Even RFK said ...that in 40 years we would have a Negro President.

He said that back in 68!!!

So have faith.

I think Obama is blowing it, which could be tragic.

One way the Republican tactics of sliming a candidate work is the Democrats have for some reason a real problem in attacking back. They don`t think it looks "presidential" (dukakis, gore, kerry). I see Obama not using the obvious ammo against McCain: whose economic advisor engineered our casino of a financial system, who sings "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran", who thinks it is cute that he is totally ignorant of economics, etc ad nauseum.

The problem with not attacking back is that it sends a message: I will not stand up for YOU American voter, because I cannot even stand up for myself.

I think that the message folks are getting from Obama on the economy is, I am too weak to challenge economic business as usual in this country.

This trashes the best reason folks have for voting for Obama.

"We also know it would be subtle. We also know that it would work, at least to the extent of moving some voters away from Obama."

I think a big part of the reason it works is that the campaign can't itself or the media (including sympathetic liberal leaning media) out from under it quick enough. Arguably, to an extent, this worked to his advantage during the Democratic primary. It won't work in the general election.

I'm not obsessing over the polls, but during the primary a lot of attention was paid to certain particular swing states--OH, PA, INV, WV-- in part because it allowed liberals to fixate on whether or not "working class" voters in the rust belt would be willing to vote for a black candidate.

I'm still wondering about some possible swing states that Hillary won that no one paid much attention to because they were held on Super Tuesday. States without the same preponderance of relentlessly stereotyped knuckle dragging "working class" voters, states like New Jersey.

While everyone focused on Britney and Paris, McCain was constantly talking up 2 points: how Obama is "going to raise your taxes," and how Obama is going to make decisions that "make the economy less productive." This is the usual Republican line and for some reason, it always works.

I think the Democrats need to steer this whole campaign back to where it was before the whole Hillary-Obama blood feud.

I actually think Hillary has higher negatives than Obama on a bad day. Support for Obama is based on the fact that he's a better candidate.

It's worrisome that McCain's polls are doing as well as they are, but even Bush has 30%. Throw in the 10-20% that don't want tax increases, and there you go. Obama's got his work cut out for him.

The polls are going to bounce around for the rest of the summer. I want to see what happens 1) when they both have their VP's, and 2) after the debates.

I'm not worried.

This is ALL Bill Clinton's doing.
He may not be racist but he certainly had no problem racemongering to win.

The Clintons are the ones who need to come out and defend Obama for the sake of the party.

Instead Bill is sulking and pouting because he loss the race due to his own very blatant racemongering.

Neither Clinton can point to any statements by Barack that called him a racist.

However his actions were clear racemongering just like McCain's ad's are and David Gergen explained that very clearly on ABC This Week with Stepinfetchitnoupolous.

Well well MJ

Nate, 538...

Is Obama Underachieving?
In an article in today's Los Angeles Times, I examine the widespread notion that Barack Obama has been 'underachieving', especially relative to the performance of a Generic Democrat.
...Obama has heretofore been unable to brand John McCain as a Generic Republican, as McCain is regarded by much of the electorate as a moderate.

Amen to that!

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/is-obama-underachieving.html

An entire column without Jew-bashing?

M.J., are you feeling well?

A question on my mind, though, is this: why, all of a sudden, are some people saying that Obama's race is going to get him defeated?

I just think what's going on, thanks to the slime machine, is that we while we wanted to believe in the better angels of our nature, we have neglected to believe that the same old devils are still at work. MJ's right to voice some alarm. America has always been more about what it aspired to be than what it was at any given moment, but at least we have the power to reach for something better if we do not lose courage.

As Berthold Brecht warned about celebrations of Hitler's defeat, "Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world stood up and stopped the bastard, The bitch that bore him is in heat again."

It's not surprising that O's numbers have dropped. This is just the opening act of an old play of America that we probably prefer to believe had been performed and panned long ago.

But that's OK. It is the price we -- and our surrogate, Obama-- will have to pay in order to peel the scab off this old sore once and again.

The old bitch is always in heat, sooner or later. The battle is joined. No one relinquishes power voluntarily. These guys mean to play for keeps, too. And they have the ruthlessness and cynicism from running things for decades that makes them ever more dangerous.

My only fear, though, is that the core is soft, that Democrats have grown fat and corrupt, too many of them, while feeding at the public trough. If we don't change more than just the party in power, we won't be in power very long.

This a test, a game-changer. One we must not fail.

....don't think it will be Obama's skin color that does him in....it will be his "middle name", pushing the whispering campaign that gets enough voters riled up over his "un-American" sounding name, aided and abetted by with the conservative mainstream media who have their own corporate interests at stake....fear always works, rich or poor.

Yes, I too am getting nervous. I agree, some need to get out in Middle America more.

Don't know why Obama doesn't want to seem to get down and do it. You have to fight where the enemy is. If the enemy is down in the mud, then you have to get down in it to some degree.

MJ, I am not too concerned with going into the Olympics break nearly even in the polls -- in recent weeks I've had the sense Obama was peaking a bit early, and the need to push it up and not coast was a necessary correction. Apparently he is going to take a few days off during the Olympics, and then come back -- and that just might break the cycle of tit for tat on what is or isn't racism.

I am less concerned with a Biography than I am with whether he is willing to deliver a totally uncooked red meat speech at the convention, taking the hide off the VALUES of the Bush Cheney years, and the strings that tie McCain into all of it. Just re-read some of FDR's 1936 speeches where he called out the "Economic Royalists" for what they were, noted that they hated him, and stood his ground by saying he welcomed their hate. Obama can't give that speech exactly, but he can fashion his own version. Somehow he has to bridge aspirational with the red meat approach that appeals to those who look on Presidential Elections essentially as Pork Chops.

The Olympics are two weeks -- week one, the more artistic sports such as gymnastics. Week Two we get to tradition and track and field stuff. Obama needs to pound back when we are into 15 thousand meters and relays and then the final marathon -- and not during the boutique stuff.

I hope his staff has a nice vacation planned for him -- not windsurfing on the Cape, but a nice fishing camp someplace, decent lodge, decent food, a guide who takes the whole family out for decent fishing, swimming, perhaps some play at water polo -- a horse back ride, and an under the stars barbarque. Then in the last days of the Olympics he ought to go back out on the trail. What we want is build up to Denver and a nice reasonable bump -- and small scale campaigning during the Republican Convention.

It looks now like Ron Paul and Jesse Ventura have sold more tickets for their event in the Target Center in Minneapolis (which is larger) than the Republicans will have in the Hockey Arena in St. Paul. What's that about????

"water polo?!?!????!! ???

and you don't think that gymnastics viewers are a necessary demographic????"

Water Polo is a pretty normal lodge sport for kids and anyone else. Requires no special training or equiptment for all to just have fun. Apparently you have not been to all that many just family operated lodges in recent years. It is very common.

Gymnastics, everyone understands that the family has to quit their jobs, second mortgage their houses and all and move to a professonal gym so their 14 year old can hopefully support the family. How many have?

Why shouldn't the general campaign be based on race?

That's what Obama based his primary campaign on -- isn't it wonderful that we aren't talking about my race and any one who opposes me is a racist.

Obama's willingness to make false charges of racism disqualifies him morally from holding the Oval Office -- it shows he puts his own well-being above the good of the country.

MJ,

I completely agree with you that the convention should be an all out attack on the Republicans and their years of misrule, corruption and lawlessness. Unfortunately, unless Obama changes course, he has rejected this path with all that malarky and blather about bringing the nation together, birpartisanship, etc... The best thing for this nation right now is to all but destroy the Republican Party and install massive Democratic majorities in Congress so the people's business can start to be done for the first time since about 1965.

Harry Truman wrote that the best situation for the country is to have a strong Democratic Party fighting for the common people and a small, all but powerless Republican Party representing the interests of the few at the expense of the many as a reminder of what the country doesn't need or want. I agree with Truman and I think a wide majority of Democrats see the wisdom and practicality of that kind of thinking which is very much at odds with all that "return to bipartisanship" garbage.

That whole rhetorical tack of "post" partisanship emasculates Democratic efforts to defeat the Republicans because it rejects blaming our current circumstances on those primarily responsible for the problems, crimes, and difficulties of the past 7 years on those who created them in the first place! The Democratic Party is emasculated enough without taking any hope of partisan attack off the table. In fact, it's precisely what the Democratic Party has been lacking for the past 30 years: some partisan cajones!

Now is the time and 2008 is the year to attack every Republican relentlessly for everything that is wrong with the US. I should note that this is a tactical proposition to be used in order to win the election. Intelligent, thoughtful Democrats who want to see the cowardly DC corporate, centrist Democrats deposed as soon as possible and replaced must never forget that the corporate Democrats in office in DC (Reid, Pelosi, et al)share a great deal of the responsibility for the misrule, lawlessness and corruption of the Bush years because of their deplorable cowardice, their abdication of their responsibility to the people and to the Constitution, their limp-wristed opposition and their repeated decisions to choose to prostitute themselves to corporate interests instead of choosing to side with the interests of the common people of the United States who elected them and who are, theoretically at least, their constituents.

Obama and his organization seems to me headed in exactly the wrong direction as he is now apparently under the full influence of the Democratic Svengalis of Washington DC who have managed to lose the past two "sure thing" Presidential elections with their recommendation of equivocation, groveling, not fighting back and flip-flopping. Somehow their grip must be broken so that Obama actually chooses to win as opposed to passively playing defense from now till November in the hopes of winning despite the pathetic, ineffective campaign the DC Dems want to run against McCain once again as they did in the past two Presidential elections.

I've posted elsewhere a link to a letter published in The Nation urging Obama not to continue to compromise on the principles and issues that won him the nomination. Many very well respected Democrats, authors, activists, etc... have signed. Regular people can sign too and I urge everyone to do so. The letter is brief and it's easy to add your name to the list and tell others to do it to.

Please add your name to the list MJ. It sure can't hurt and you'll be in excellent company.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/open_letter