Tuesday, at around 7:30 p.m. our time, Jim Messina, the Obama campaign's chief of staff and a veteran numbers counter, turned to his colleagues in the Chicago "boiler room", the nerve center for the Obama high command on Election Night, and announced that if Pennsylvania and Virginia held for Obama, victory was all but certain.

This election is not quite over yet---but the Reeps are already preparing for the next one which is not shaping up to be a second term for Team McCain.

Sara Palin apparently already knows that and has started to dip her toes in the presidential waters for 2012. That may strike some of McCain's supporters who plucked her out of obscurity just months ago as a discourtesy. But she is only doing what any smart-thinking, ambitious politician would do---look after oneself.

Her role model for this enterprise is no less a Republican light than Ronald Reagan himself whose friends began urging him to consider running for California governor even before the dust had fully settled on the Goldwater debacle in 1964. That turned out to be good call.

Palin has all but telegraphed her intentions telling ABC News the other day that she plans on become a national fixture regardless of what happens Tuesday.

Never mind that she has become a gigantic drag on the Republican ticket after a splashy debut that had the pundits agog at John McCain's brilliant strategem in picking her. Since then her antics and semantics have become a late night comedy routine on all the networks and the Democrats have begun drooling for her every reappearance.

But the Democrats have no say in this. And If her throngs of admiring fans across the nation is any sign of things to come, they will not have to demand an encore. The syllable-killing governor from the forgotten state of Alaska is ready and willing to assume her rightful place in the conservative spotlight.

The question is how many of her fellow Republicans, soon to be in mourning over their party's sudden change in fortune, will want to give her a second chance after a Vice Presidential tryout that makes Dan Quayle look like he may have been unfairly maligned.

One good Republican friend actually asked the question, "Do you think she is the best that we can put forward?"

That question should have been posed earlier--not that it might have made much difference given the national quagmire that was handed Mr. McCain who apparently thought the lightly raced soccer mom had the stuff to carry them across the finish line first. 

But, to change metaphors, this is what happens when you buy a snazzy car without first checking to see what's under the hood.

Now the GOP may have a bigger problem with exactly what to do with her as many within the party who were banking on her to excite their base and bring over the Independents and undecideds are fuming over the selection.

That will matter little to Palin who has been steadily carving out her own identity as a no-holds-barred advocate for the conservative credo who may not know what her favorite book is or what may be causing the polar ice cap to melt, but can light up an audience of thousands with a string of non-sequitors, and just a wink and a smile.

If the Republican faithful have been skeptical from the beginning about John McCain's willingness to flout party orthodoxy, Palin will require them to re-write the rule book if she becomes a force in the next election.

If she did not already feel liberated, she is now after McCain's advisors,seeing her polls nosediving, labelled her a "whack job" presumably to begin distancing their candidate. In fact it has become difficult in recent days knowing whether she or Joe the Plumber is McCain's true running mate.

The Repubicans will have start thinking about reconstruction much as the Democrats have needed to do in the Post-Clinton era. But almost any rebulding scenario will have to factor in Sara Palin who may just turn out to be a bigger maverick than McCain and his team ever realized.

 

 

 

 

 

If the presidential campaign was the Olympics - and in many ways it is - we would already have a fairly good idea of how the medals should be awarded.

After more than 24 months, 54 primary contests, four national debates, record millions spent on advertising and the largest audience participation in American history, this historic contest soon will be decided.

By any accounting, Barack Obama has won every trial heat, and is the prohibitive favorite to take the gold. He has shown himself to be a durable athlete with tremendous drive and a redoubtable combination of political savvy and natural gifts that have propelled him to the threshold of an unprecedented achievement-the nation's first African American president.

His journey is not the usual one, yet quintessentially American - one that put him on an unforeseeable trajectory of increasing success despite the heavy odds; one where his uncommon ancestral origins and mixed racial identity might have worked to undermine the resolve and self-confidence of a lesser being, but instead strengthened it.

Most noticeable is an inner calm displayed repeatedly as he has withstood highly personal attacks on his character and readiness.

Somehow Obama overcame the disadvantages imposed by a culture that has not been especially kind to enterprising black politicians and which has knocked down more than a few in their quest for higher office.

This does not seem to have deterred Obama whose multiple talents as a skilled orator, shrewd campaign architect, deep thinker and formidable adversary, had already gained notice before his arrival in Washington and whose steadiness under pressure became the signature of his entire campaign.

If anything, the debates with John McCain exposed the weaknesses of an outclassed opponent who had no arrows left in his quiver to counteract Obama's more plausible explanations for dealing with the myriad of problems that will face the next president.

McCain, throughout his long and often stormy Senate career, has been known to rely more on indignation and bluster than on careful and reasoned analysis of the issues. When he has come up short on policy initiatives, his fallback has typically been his heroic service to the nation and the trials he endured as a prisoner of war.

McCain's game-changing breakthrough, if there was to be one, needed to come in relation to his reaction and approach to the worsening economic picture which is the dark unavoidable tableaux against which both candidates are being measured.

In that McCain stumbled badly.

With the George Bush legacy hanging over him like an executioner's sword, McCain had the choice of fully repudiating his former nemesis and thereby alienating much of his political base, or finding a way of straddling the no-man's land between an abandonment of the failed economic policies that is this administration's legacy and posing reforms that will help the middle class which is suffering most.

Obama has very adroitly exploited this opening and the economic program he is suggesting that combines tax relief with not yet fully spelled out spending constraints appears to be resonating more favorably with the undecided voters who hold the key to the election.

The majority of polls show Obama with an increasing lead, that the debates did not alter and, most importantly, in states that voted Republican last time that McCain must win to have any chance. But there are two great unknowns which no poll can accurately determine - the race factor and turnout by young and new voters.

If these both play to Obama's favor, an outcome of landslide proportion with both houses of Congress in solid Democratic control is not impossible.

In a campaign with its fair share of high drama, this would put an ending on it only the most imaginative fiction writer could have cooked up when it all began.

A hurricane bypassed New Orleans a few weeks ago, but it didn't miss the rest of the country and it is still wreaking havoc.

Its name is Sarah Palin, the governor of the 49th state, catapulted meteorically from obscure small-town mayor to the governor of Alaska to a possible office in the East Wing of the White House - all in the lightning span of six years.

Forget about shattering the glass ceiling. That's breaking the sound barrier.

Americans have always enjoyed heroic tales but we expect our heroes (and heroines) to work up a sweat, to feel a little pain, even taste defeat before they are permitted to savor victory.

If Rocky Balboa had beaten his opponent in their first match there would have been no sequels. If John McCain had not been a prisoner of war, the Republicans probably would have nominated someone else. They are authentic heroes because they endured considerable hardship, and their ability to overcome adversity is what makes their stories compelling.

Hillary Clinton fell short of achieving heroine status, and had to overcome strong gender opposition in her failed bid to become the first woman president. But in reaching for the heights, there were elements of authentic struggle which made her a believable figure for millions.

Barack Obama faces formidable obstacles of his own if he is to be elected the nation's first black president. Whether his journey will achieve heroic proportions remains to be seen.

Still, the adversity each confronted was not the only factor in their epic battle to gain the crown. Neither would have felt it possible to aspire to this pinnacle without the grounding in national and world affairs each can boast - and without first convincing the voters they had what it takes to lead.

More so, over the past two years each was exposed to the most intensive public vetting, and both passed the presidential readiness test.

The Sarah Palin story is quite different.

While the Palin distraction is causing many to forget that it is John McCain who heads the ticket, just as Republican strategists had hoped, her troubling selection is an audacious and cynical act designed to take voters' minds off the issues and to make the party responsible for the country's mess seem like the real agent of change.

To suggest that Palin is fully equipped to take over as president if necessary - which after all is the only reason we choose vice presidents - after a mere 20 months running a state with more animals than voters and where the contented populace pays less taxes than anywhere else thanks to publicly subsidized windfall oil profits, demands a leap of faith that even a pragmatic moose dresser might question.

It should be mildly disconcerting that any individual tapped to fill the nation's second highest office may have been interviewed for less time than it takes to order a cup of coffee. Never mind that her total foreign policy experience may be little more than her views across the Bering Strait of a dangerous adversary about which she knows little.

Apparently she disagrees with McCain that humans might have something to do with global warming even as the steady erosion of the polar ice cap is turning her state into baked Alaska. And while McCain has decried the infamous "earmarks" that reward legislators for their votes, reform advocate Palin engineered $346 million of these giveaways for her state.

None of this seems to have fazed the strong-willed, gutsy, wisecracking, rifle-toting frontier mom who has become an instant media sensation with a protective shield constructed to prevent any annoying inquiries about her vice presidential bona fides.

On Oct. 2, Palin meets Joe Biden in their only debate. He may have the best opportunity to show the nation if she really has the stuff of which heroines are made.

Vice presidential nominees do not make or break tickets, but this time around it may be different.

WE ARE CLEARLY IN THE MIDST OF ONE OF THE MOST UNUSUAL,  TUMULTUOUS, INDEED UNPRECEDENTED, PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN OUR HISTORY. NOTHING HAS BEEN PREDICTABLE ABOUT IT TO DATE, AND THE SURPRISES CONTINUE. WITH NO NATURAL HEIR TO THE WHITE HOUSE IN EITHER PARTY, THE STAGE IS SET FOR A HISTORY MAKING EVENT IN JANUARY, REGARDLESS OF WHICH TICKET IS VICTORIOUS.

WE ARE CLEARLY IN THE MIDST OF ONE OF THE MOST UNUSUAL,  TUMULTUOUS, INDEED UNPRECEDENTED, PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN OUR HISTORY. NOTHING HAS BEEN PREDICTABLE ABOUT IT TO DATE, AND THE SURPRISES CONTINUE. WITH NO NATURAL HEIR TO THE WHITE HOUSE IN EITHER PARTY, THE STAGE IS SET FOR A HISTORY MAKING EVENT IN JANUARY, REGARDLESS OF WHICH TICKET IS VICTORIOUS.

JOHN McCAIN proved long ago, much to the dismay of his own party, that he is unpredictable and is willing to roll the dice. With a candidacy low on excitement looking at a super-charged opponent in Barack Obama who has created a tsunami in American politics, the 72-year-old senator decided he needed to shake things up. And he has.

If Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's entry was not enough of a game changer, next we learn that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is pregnant and the nomination is mired in ethical questions - not headlines they wanted clouding the GOP convention.

The simple problem here is that the stakes are enormous, and he chose a woman to be his vice president whose principal credential seems to be that she has run a state for barely 20 months with a population smaller than San Francisco and a budget about as large.

In one bold stroke, McCain threw the "Hillary issue," which Democrats thought was resolved right back in their laps. Do a quick survey of pivotal battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio where Clinton bested Obama in the primaries and it does not take a genius to see this is fertile ground for prying away women and blue-collar voters.

The next task became self-evident: Find a woman with solid conservative credentials and a modicum of executive experience who would be compatible with the temperamental McCain.

Palin, gun enthusiast, anti-abortion advocate and a mother of five willing to buck her own state's establishment, seemed perfect.

Being a former beauty queen married to a part-time oil field worker whose finances will doubtless withstand scrutiny (avoiding the Geraldine Ferraro hubby problem) did not hurt either.

While this daring choice has initially taken the spotlight off Obama and thrilled evangelicals unenthused with McCain, it also asks voters to entrust the nation's management in the event of misfortune to a political neophyte.

This should immunize Obama from attack on the experience issue. In Joe Biden, he has a reliable backup. But the McCain team apparently thinks Palin's appeal to women is more important than her presidential readiness.

Betty Schafer of Nicasio is offended by Palin's attempt to wrap herself in Clinton's mantle seeing no parallel between the senator's historical run and the ambitions of an unknown woman who "knows more about fishing than foreign policy." On the nomination, Clinton has said only that Palin's policies "would take America in the wrong direction."

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, says bluntly, "Republicans have insulted women all along and don't understand that we pay attention. Palin will not be a fill-in for Hillary. Besides, this is not between Clinton and Palin."

But if the Palin choice is very risky, she does what none of the white male finalists on McCain's short list could do. For one thing it could de-fang Biden, whose most potent weapon - his vaunted debating skills - will need to be sharply curbed or he could come off either too patronizing or too harsh.

Many younger voters will be able to identify with the former high school basketball star and Miss Alaska runner-up who, at 44, presents a robust persona that undercuts the graying and stale old-boy image that largely defines the Republican Party.

Independents will like her brassiness and being tough enough to blow the whistle, even on members of her own party for ethical misconduct.

But with all the positives Palin arguably brings to the ticket, perhaps the biggest thing it does is make McCain's age a subject for legitimate discussion.

To see her as an insurance policy if McCain should be unable to serve is requiring a leap of faith that many voters might not be willing to make.

Conversely, if McCain is staking the outcome of his campaign on the novelty of his vice-presidential selection, he is taking a gamble no presidential nominee has ever done before.

JOHN McCAIN proved long ago, much to the dismay of his own party, that he is unpredictable and is willing to roll the dice. With a candidacy low on excitement looking at a super-charged opponent in Barack Obama who has created a tsunami in American politics, the 72-year-old senator decided he needed to shake things up. And he has.

If Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's entry was not enough of a game changer, next we learn that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is pregnant and the nomination is mired in ethical questions - not headlines they wanted clouding the GOP convention.

The simple problem here is that the stakes are enormous, and he chose a woman to be his vice president whose principal credential seems to be that she has run a state for barely 20 months with a population smaller than San Francisco and a budget about as large.

In one bold stroke, McCain threw the "Hillary issue," which Democrats thought was resolved right back in their laps. Do a quick survey of pivotal battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio where Clinton bested Obama in the primaries and it does not take a genius to see this is fertile ground for prying away women and blue-collar voters.

The next task became self-evident: Find a woman with solid conservative credentials and a modicum of executive experience who would be compatible with the temperamental McCain.

Palin, gun enthusiast, anti-abortion advocate and a mother of five willing to buck her own state's establishment, seemed perfect.

Being a former beauty queen married to a part-time oil field worker whose finances will doubtless withstand scrutiny (avoiding the Geraldine Ferraro hubby problem) did not hurt either.

While this daring choice has initially taken the spotlight off Obama and thrilled evangelicals unenthused with McCain, it also asks voters to entrust the nation's management in the event of misfortune to a political neophyte.

This should immunize Obama from attack on the experience issue. In Joe Biden, he has a reliable backup. But the McCain team apparently thinks Palin's appeal to women is more important than her presidential readiness.

Betty Schafer of Nicasio is offended by Palin's attempt to wrap herself in Clinton's mantle seeing no parallel between the senator's historical run and the ambitions of an unknown woman who "knows more about fishing than foreign policy." On the nomination, Clinton has said only that Palin's policies "would take America in the wrong direction."

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, says bluntly, "Republicans have insulted women all along and don't understand that we pay attention. Palin will not be a fill-in for Hillary. Besides, this is not between Clinton and Palin."

But if the Palin choice is very risky, she does what none of the white male finalists on McCain's short list could do. For one thing it could de-fang Biden, whose most potent weapon - his vaunted debating skills - will need to be sharply curbed or he could come off either too patronizing or too harsh.

Many younger voters will be able to identify with the former high school basketball star and Miss Alaska runner-up who, at 44, presents a robust persona that undercuts the graying and stale old-boy image that largely defines the Republican Party.

Independents will like her brassiness and being tough enough to blow the whistle, even on members of her own party for ethical misconduct.

But with all the positives Palin arguably brings to the ticket, perhaps the biggest thing it does is make McCain's age a subject for legitimate discussion.

To see her as an insurance policy if McCain should be unable to serve is requiring a leap of faith that many voters might not be willing to make.

Conversely, if McCain is staking the outcome of his campaign on the novelty of his vice-presidential selection, he is taking a gamble no presidential nominee has ever done before.

This column first appeared in the Aug. 27 print edition of the IJ. Demonstrators have showed restraint during the Democratic convention - at least until the other night. That's when Rep Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, and her California colleagues were trapped in their hotel. A march organized by anarchists - calling themselves Unconventional Denver - was close to getting out of control at the delegation's Sheraton Denver lodgings. Woolsey witnessed the melee from her 21st-floor hotel room, "but from that height we couldn't even tell what they were protesting. Even the doors out of the hotel were chained closed." We thought all anarchists disappeared after the '68 Chicago convention!

   

San Anselmo's Marlene Knox, who describes herself as the sole "grassroots" delegate, may also be the only one to have heard John F. Kennedy at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1961. "Caroline Kennedy's introduction of Ted on Monday night brought it full circle for me."

   

For Lt. Gov. John Garemendi, who on Tuesday drove us out to the Pepsi Center, this marks his eighth national convention. Garemendi and his ebullient wife, Patty, are optimistic that his third attempt to claim the governorship will be the lucky charm. The affable former University of California at Berkeley football star will announce his campaign team next week.

   

The omnipresent Willie Brown, former mayor of San Francisco, was holding court outside the California delegation's breakfast meeting surrounded by adoring fans. Wearing his trademark grey pinstripe Wilkes Bashford getup, he faced the microphones with that knowing look. For a few moments, his Honor, who is the interviewer these days for MSNBC, became the interviewee. "If Dianne (Feinstein) runs for governor, she and Jerry (Brown) will dominate. Everyone else needs to forget about it."

As for the competition Barack Obama will face in the general election, the former speaker breezily opines, "Obama has set the bar so high, (John) McCain will never get over it."

   

A few minutes later we ran into new Congresswoman Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, who has urged Feinstein to run - but with one admonition. "Dianne should come back to California and consider serving a single term." But would she want to trade in a safe Senate seat to have to fix the state's gigantic budget mess? A very tall order even for the state's popular and very adept senior senator. To which Speier says, "she could hit the ground running with little learning cycle."

If this scenario played out, the question becomes who would she appoint to her unexpired term? Early betting line: Gavin Newsom (who would likely exit the governor's race instantly). Maybe her close friend, Democratic Rep. Ellen Tauscher of Contra Costa? Stay tuned.

   

The ultimate policy maven is Inverness resident Norman Solomon, a journalist, media critic and anti-war activist who would be delighted to attend health-care briefings from dawn to dusk. An Obama delegate, Solomon is touting his involvement in the progressivesâ "Healthcare Not Warfare" movement.

   

We were having a late breakfast Tuesday when Corey Booker - Newark, New Jersey's dynamic reform mayor - dropped by our table. The Stanford grad has one of the toughest tasks in America: turning around a corrupt and abysmally run city government. If he succeeds, he has an unlimited future.

   

The other night, AT&T organized a reception for California legislators and their staff. San Rafael Councilman Paul Cohen was there and reports that except for three or four assembly members, the rest were absent, stuck in Sacramento over the state-budget fiasco. "It ended up with a bunch of lobbyists talking to each other."

   

The Denver security operation takes nothing for granted. A fellow checked into the Hyatt Regency Monday night with two rifles. It could have been a hunter from Montana, but no one was taking any chances. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Hyatt guest, was spirited out of the hotel until it became crystal clear that the threat was bogus.

Reading reporter Michael Powell's recent piece in the New York Times ("A Rural Slice of a Big State Tests Obama") tells you just how difficult it will be to come up with the formula for winning this election - and how far away we are in untroubled Marin from the misfortunes plaguing other areas of the nation.

Obama will most likely carry Marin decisively, but along the gravel roads dotted with the shuttered schools and abandoned mills and factories of rural Pennsylvania that Powell visited, there is little talk of green energy or high-speed trains to alleviate the growing traffic.

In those vast unseen reaches of the nation that are experiencing deepening economic doldrums, change must be spelled out if it is to be believable. Neither lofty goals nor one's claims to being the better patriot really matter much.

The problems are few jobs, high gas prices, unaffordable health costs and an education system that is failing badly - and they are looking to elect a president who can solve them.

For them, the Iraq war and even Russia's aggression in Georgia are far-away disturbances growing ever more distant.

These are not liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican concerns - they are human ones that both Obama and McCain are still having trouble connecting to, judging by polling data that show Obama having a razor-thin lead while McCain has gained little ground after raising questions about everything from his opponent's celebrity status to the authenticity of his American birthright.

Many in the middle class have seen their earning power diminish and their homes taken away under a system that preserves tax breaks for the wealthiest who have profited for most part under the economic arrangements that Democrats condemn but that both major parties have found advantageous in preserving their political hegemony.

It is these working-class voters and many independents who Hillary Clinton appealed to in the key Rust Belt states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky that neither Obama nor McCain have yet found great success in reaching. Those voters will be critical to victory.

But is her and her husband's common-man's popularity transferable to a candidate whose Ivy League bearing and urbane sophistication is off-putting to the millions of voters just tuning in to this campaign. They rejected many of the same qualities in the fellow who the Democrats nominated four years ago?

Will this be a Kerry campaign redux or are we seeing in Obama a superior candidate with a single inescapable distinction that could tip the balance - the color of his skin?

Beyond all the tests that he has already passed and the many he still faces - his youthfulness, lack of foreign policy credentials, the grit to withstand the inevitable Republican assault - he comes before the voters as a black man, albeit one of the most promising of this or any generation.

In beleaguered cities across America where cultural divides run deep, where unemployment levels exceed 30 percent and Bush's one-time check rebate is long since spent, the voters have stopped believing in any politician.

It is very likely race will be a factor for too many. But so will McCain's age and growing mental lapses (shouldn't presidents know where Afghanistan is and that Czechoslovakia is no longer a country?)

For the millions of voters who have not yet decided, there is another quality that trumps racism, ageism, patriotism and just about every other barrier to election - and that's trustworthiness - where the dial has hit zero for the current White House incumbent.

Trustworthiness, like Hillary Clinton's credibility among the working class and older women is one of those elements that cannot be transferred or proffered by third parties. It has to be earned.

McCain has built his case for trust largely around his past military service, some of it as a prisoner of war.

Obama, who has a shorter past, must convince voters he can be trusted as the better guardian of the nation's future.

var requestedWidth = 0; if(requestedWidth > 0){ document.getElementById('articleViewerGroup').style.width = requestedWidth + "px"; document.getElementById('articleViewerGroup').style.margin = "0px 0px 10px 10px"; } READING reporter Michael Powell's recent piece in the New York Times ("A Rural Slice of a Big State Tests Obama") tells you just how difficult it will be to come up with the formula for winning this election - and how far away we are in untroubled Marin from the misfortunes plaguing other areas of the nation.

Obama will most likely carry Marin decisively, but along the gravel roads dotted with the shuttered schools and abandoned mills and factories of rural Pennsylvania that Powell visited, there is little talk of green energy or high-speed trains to alleviate the growing traffic.

In those vast unseen reaches of the nation that are experiencing deepening economic doldrums, change must be spelled out if it is to be believable. Neither lofty goals nor one's claims to being the better patriot really matter much.

The problems are few jobs, high gas prices, unaffordable health costs and an education system that is failing badly - and they are looking to elect a president who can solve them.

For them, the Iraq war and even Russia's aggression in Georgia are far-away disturbances growing ever more distant.

These are not liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican concerns - they are human ones that both Obama and McCain are still having trouble connecting to, judging by polling data that show Obama having a razor-thin lead while McCain has gained little ground after raising questions about everything from his opponent's celebrity status to the authenticity of his American birthright.

Many in the middle class have seen their earning power diminish and their homes taken away under a system that preserves tax breaks for the wealthiest who have profited for most part under the economic arrangements that Democrats condemn but that both major parties have found advantageous in preserving their political hegemony.

It is these working-class voters and many independents who Hillary Clinton appealed to in the key Rust Belt states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky that neither Obama nor McCain have yet found great success in reaching. Those voters will be critical to victory.

But is her and her husband's common-man's popularity transferable to a candidate whose Ivy League bearing and urbane sophistication is off-putting to the millions of voters just tuning in to this campaign. They rejected many of the same qualities in the fellow who the Democrats nominated four years ago?

Will this be a Kerry campaign redux or are we seeing in Obama a superior candidate with a single inescapable distinction that could tip the balance - the color of his skin?

Beyond all the tests that he has already passed and the many he still faces - his youthfulness, lack of foreign policy credentials, the grit to withstand the inevitable Republican assault - he comes before the voters as a black man, albeit one of the most promising of this or any generation.

In beleaguered cities across America where cultural divides run deep, where unemployment levels exceed 30 percent and Bush's one-time check rebate is long since spent, the voters have stopped believing in any politician.

It is very likely race will be a factor for too many. But so will McCain's age and growing mental lapses (shouldn't presidents know where Afghanistan is and that Czechoslovakia is no longer a country?)

For the millions of voters who have not yet decided, there is another quality that trumps racism, ageism, patriotism and just about every other barrier to election - and that's trustworthiness - where the dial has hit zero for the current White House incumbent.

Trustworthiness, like Hillary Clinton's credibility among the working class and older women is one of those elements that cannot be transferred or proffered by third parties. It has to be earned.

McCain has built his case for trust largely around his past military service, some of it as a prisoner of war.

Obama, who has a shorter past, must convince voters he can be trusted as the better guardian of the nation's future.

Last night at the Denver Broncos stadium, where Stanford's John Elway used to loft mighty touchdowns, the Democrats launched the nomination of Barack Obama to be president of the United States into what they hoped to be the winning end zone.
It was a transfixing and transformative moment in American history, which could change the nation's political trajectory for generations to come.

To San Rafael Council member Paul Co-hen, Obama was "outstanding. He eloquently laid out his vision for America." Greenbrae's Ilse Wolf saw Obama's acceptance speech as a paradigm shift for the nation. Sausalito attorney Charles Bonner observed, "There is a time when someone must step up lead the country and the world. Tonight Obama showed that the has the capacity and the vision to do just that."

The sense that history was being made in front of the almost 80,000 attendees permeated Mile High Stadium. We heard a young man say to his girlfriend as they walked from the event, "You'll remember this night for the rest of your life."

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The Screen Actors Guild threw a lavish event at Five Degrees, Denver's ultra hip nightclub, and it was a scene right out of Hollywood casting.

Ben Affleck and Forest Whitaker were chatting at a corner table. Kirsten Dunst was nearby deep in conversation. In the midst of this stargazing, we turn to a vaguely familiar mid-50s husky fellow to ask his name.

He immediately extends his hand and says, "Pleased to meet you, my name is Jimmy Hoffa."

The president of the Teamsters Union turns out to be knowledgeable, as one would expect, but also accessible and unassuming. We spent an easy half hour Wednesday jointly analyzing the election state by state, frankly discussing various Congress members and then his 1.2 million-member union's expected role in November's election. One insight: the Obama folks want him to fly to Montana to rally union members. Hoffa expressed surprise that they were serious about winning a small red state, but he was game. The GOP's smartest veep pick? Mitt Romney, as it puts Michigan in play.
The Teamster honcho tells us that he's heading to Joe and Jill Biden's private reception at the Westin. He confirmed that he heard that Michele and Barack would drop by. A half-hour later we managed to talk ourselves into Biden's soiree, where the newly minted vice presidential nominee graciously took time for photos. Michele had been there earlier but Obama was still making the rounds. Who then spotted us? Mr. Hoffa, resuming the conversation from Five Degrees.

lll

Working the bars at the California delegation hotel we learned why the California delegation "passed" on the roll call vote to anoint Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee. It turned out to be nothing Machiavellian; simply incompetence. The votes were physically cast at the California caucus breakfast meeting. When counted at the Pepsi Center, the numbers didn't add up. There were more votes than delegates!

Understanding how awkward that would appear and with insufficient time to straighten out the mess before the Golden State's name was called, passing was clearly the safe route. Hillary Clinton's surprise move making the nomination unanimous by acclamation made the rest of the roll call a moot point anyway.

lll

California transplant Gail Kefauver, whose father ran unsuccessfully for vice president in 1956, was among the many scrounging for a hard-to-get admission credential to the convention and finally gave up, resigned to watch it on a TV monitor at the Grand Hyatt bar lounge. But she needn't have felt too bad - sitting across from her with his wife was James Sasser, the state's senior senator.

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Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, a close confidante of the Speaker, and chairman of the important House Education Committee, stopped to chat but needed to keep moving to exercise his new hip - his second one. On the vice presidential choice: "Joe (Biden) knows how to connect with people - he will definitely be helpful to Obama with working-class voters."

lll

Inverness's Norman Solomon is an Obama delegate, but his real passion is health care reform. He and San Rafael Councilman Greg Brockbank have struggled to add strong language to the party's platform mandating guaranteed health care. They have met with some success, but acknowledge that the old demand for a "single payer" system is uphill. The new mantra is "guaranteed" care and doesn't mandate any particular insurance scheme.

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All conventions are organized bedlam - and this one has been no different. But Denver is to be commended for putting on a game face under the crush of conventioneers who turned streets into pedestrian parking lots. Protesters were mostly invisible and mainly talking to themselves. There are better cities in which to hold these things - but none that have tried harder.

Demonstrators have showed restraint during the Democratic convention - at least until the other night. That's when Rep Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, and her California colleagues were trapped in their hotel. A march organized by anarchists - calling themselves Unconventional Denver - was close to getting out of control at the delegation's Sheraton Denver lodgings. Woolsey witnessed the melee from her 21st-floor hotel room, "but from that height we couldn't even tell what they were protesting. Even the doors out of the hotel were chained closed." We thought all anarchists disappeared after the '68 Chicago convention!

   

San Anselmo's Marlene Knox, who describes herself as the sole "grassroots" delegate, may also be the only one to have heard John F. Kennedy at the University of Californi

t Los Angeles in 1961. "Caroline Kennedy's introduction of Ted on Monday night brought it full circle for me."

   

For Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who on Tuesday drove us out to the Pepsi Center, this marks his eighth national convention. Garamendi and his ebullient wife, Patty, are optimistic that his third attempt to claim the governorship will be the lucky charm. The affable former University of California at Berkeley football star will announce his campaign team next week.

   

The omnipresent Willie Brown, former mayor of San Francisco, was holding court outside the California delegation's breakfast meeting surrounded by adoring fans. Wearing his trademark grey pinstripe Wilkes Bashford getup, he faced the microphones with that knowing look. For a few moments, his Honor, who is the interviewer these days for MSNBC, became the interviewee. "If Dianne (Feinstein) runs for governor, she and Jerry (Brown) will dominate. Everyone else needs to forget about it."

As for the competition Barack Obama will face in the general election, the former speaker breezily opines, "Obama has set the bar so high, (John) McCain will never get over it."

   

A few minutes later we ran into new Congresswoman Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, who has urged Feinstein to run - but with one admonition. "Dianne should come back to California and consider serving a single term." But would she want to trade in a safe Senate seat to have to fix the state's gigantic budget mess? A very tall order even for the state's popular and very adept senior senator. To which Speier says, "she could hit the ground running with little learning cycle."

If this scenario played out, the question becomes who would she appoint to her unexpired term? Early betting line: Gavin Newsom (who would likely exit the governor's race instantly). Maybe her close friend, Democratic Rep. Ellen Tauscher of Contra Costa? Stay tuned.

   

The ultimate policy maven is Inverness resident Norman Solomon, a journalist, media critic and anti-war activist who would be delighted to attend health-care briefings from dawn to dusk. An Obama delegate, Solomon is touting his involvement in the progressivesâ "Healthcare Not Warfare" movement.

   

We were having a late breakfast Tuesday when Corey Booker - Newark, New Jersey's dynamic reform mayor - dropped by our table. The Stanford grad has one of the toughest tasks in America: turning around a corrupt and abysmally run city government. If he succeeds, he has an unlimited future.

   

The other night, AT&T organized a reception for California legislators and their staff. San Rafael Councilman Paul Cohen was there and reports that except for three or four assembly members, the rest were absent, stuck in Sacramento over the state-budget fiasco. "It ended up with a bunch of lobbyists talking to each other."

   

The Denver security operation takes nothing for granted. A fellow checked into the Hyatt Regency Monday night with two rifles. It could have been a hunter from Montana, but no one was taking any chances. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Hyatt guest, was spirited out of the hotel until it became crystal clear that the threat was bogus.

AS HILLARY CLINTON prepares to release her delegates after her nervously anticipated address to the convention Tuesday night, there are ominous signs that a diehard group called Women Count.com may stage a last minute pro-Hillary protest rally that could upset the strenuous efforts by Democratic National Committee organizers and the Obama forces to preserve peace and harmony.

   

Tension between the Clinton and Obama factions is palpable if not in full view. The underlying problem is that the two sides don't trust each other. Obamans fear that the Clintons and their hard-core supporters may not give their all. But the Clintonistas are still carrying a heavy chip on their shoulders after the bitter primary.

Former Fairfax Mayor Wendy Baker and her fellow Clinton delegate, Patricia Goss of Tiburon, are wearing "Hillary Supporter for Obama" buttons. Baker says, "I will support Obama, but not with the passion that I had for Hillary."

Fellow Clinton delegate Patricia Goss of Tiburon is "using the week to make the transition from Hillary to Obama." According to Goss, "The Obama people have to take some responsibility. They can't put this all on Hillary."

It sounded a little bit like indigestion.

   

Steve Westly, failed candidate for governor in 2006, pooh poohs all this dissension. Munching on a sandwich at the Sheraton (which is housing the California and New York delegations) Westly tell us, "We have come up with a candidate who can fill an 80,000-capacity stadium. From what I remember, the last Democrat who could do that was John Kennedy." From his viewing angle, a united convention is only days away.

Is Westly, an Obama co-chair, running for governor? "Let's wait until Obama is elected and then I will make a decision," says the former e-Bay bigwig and state controller.

   

San Rafael's Amanda Metcalf is a member of the Democratic National Committee's finance panel. Metcalf is here as a "special guest" which is one of seven pass classifications. The DNC is more hierarchical than the Vatican.

At the bottom is the Perimeter Pass. That gets the holder past security and into the Pepsi Arena compound. Next, the Arena Pass allows an attendee into the Convention Hall, but only with standing room privileges. A Hall Pass or Honored Guest status at least brings with it a seat. Better yet is the Floor Pass giving entry to the delegate seating area sporting the famous state standards. The top in prestige is a Platform Pass, permitting entry on to the dais followed by the hallowed Back Stage pass to which perhaps 10 lucky souls personally selected by Obama have been invited.

If you followed this, the DNC is hiring!

   

San Anselmo attorney and Park & Rec Commissioner, Tom McInerney, an Obama delegate, is a veteran conventioneer. This is his fourth Demo conclave, but his first as a delegate - and just in time for his expected run next year for Town Council.

"They have tightened up procedures a great deal. In the old days it was much easier getting a last-minute pass. But not this year," laments McInerney, who is trying to get one for his wife.

   

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who fired up delegates last night in her role as convention chair, is often accused of having a patrician lifestyle. Critics should note that she flew here coach class with her husband, Paul, and the family and grandkids.

They try to keep the seat next to her vacant for security purposes, but the flight was overbooked and United filled the seat with a standby passenger. No word if he knew the identity of his famous seatmate.