[Reposted in Firefox so that ¶s work -- some things are still not on a roll . . . ]

It goes without saying . . . but like a lot of things that go without saying, it doesn't hurt to say it occasionally.

One thing the left has going for it lately is reporting.  We talk a lot about message management.  We've got to get the "frame" right, put the right "spin" on things, and so on.  Great.  Facts alone don't win elections.

But from time to time it doesn't hurt to have some of those facts.  Like, there is no KFC in Fallujah, as you can find out if you take the clever step of calling KFC.  Or, like, shortly after McCain reversed himself and endorsed offshore drilling, a rather surprising number of low-level employees in this one oil firm donated $28,500 to the RNC and/or $2300 directly to McCain.

In a sense this isn't news.  We all remember what happened with the firing of US attorneys, and we've become accustomed to depending on TPM for facts that get ignored or muffled elsewhere.  But there's one other detail about today that might be worth highlighting.  These newly-uncovered facts about Hess are very well timed to coincide with Obama's theme for this week -- New Energy for America -- and specifically, with Obama's new ad taking aim at McCain for accepting $2mil in oil company contributions.

It's helpful when themes converge like this.  Sometimes one scandal isn't enough to get the MSM to pay attention; but if you've got two, you've got a story.

I'm not saying that TPM and Obama are coordinating their messages.  It's much more likely an accident.  (Apparently you can't throw a stone in RNC headquarters without hitting oil money.)  But whether it's coordinated, or just the effect of a lot of people thinking alike and working along parallel tracks, the effect of all the hard work is that this time the left seems to have, not just more facts, but more message discipline than the right.  And that's surprising enough, I think, to qualify as news.

It goes without saying . . . but like a lot of things that go without saying, it doesn't hurt to say it occasionally.
One thing the left has going for it lately is reporting.  We talk a lot about message management.  We've got to get the "frame" right, put the right "spin" on things, and so on.  Great.  Facts alone don't win elections.
But from time to time it doesn't hurt to have some facts.  Like, there is no KFC in Fallujah, as you can find out if you take the clever step of calling KFC.  Or, like, shortly after McCain reversed himself and endorsed offshore drilling, a rather surprising number of low-level employees in this one oil firm donated $28,500 to the RNC and/or $2300 directly to McCain.
In a sense this isn't news.  We all remember what happened with the firing of US attorneys, and we've become accustomed to depending on TPM for facts that get ignored or muffled elsewhere.  But there's one other detail about today that might be worth highlighting.  These newly-uncovered facts about Hess are very well timed to coincide with Obama'a theme for this week -- New Energy for America -- and specifically, with Obama's new ad taking aim at McCain for accepting $2mil in oil company contributions. 
It's helpful when themes converge like this.  Sometimes one scandal isn't enough to get the MSM to pay attention; but if you've got two, you've got a story.
I'm not saying that TPM and Obama are coordinating their messages.  It's much more likely an accident.  (Apparently you can't throw a stone in RNC headquarters without hitting oil money.)  But whether it's explicitly coordinated, or just the effect of a lot of people thinking alike and working along parallel tracks, the effect is that this time the left seems to have, not just more facts, but more message discipline than the right.  And that's surprising enough, I think, to qualify as news.

Not a lot of big ideas here.  Just a little factoid I've noticed that I thought I'd draw to your attention.
Pollster.com has two graphs that cover the average of an aggregate of national polls.  One of these graphs is just Obama vs. McCain
http://www.pollster.com/08-US-Pres-GE-MvO.php

Right now the spread here is 4 points.  It's O 46.9, M 42.9.
The other graph includes (some) third-party candidates.  Not McKinney, but Barr and Nader.
http://www.pollster.com/08-US-Pres-GE-MvOand3s.php

The spread here is 9.5 points.  It's O 47.4, and M (brace yourself) 37.9.
In other words, Barack's number doesn't differ at all when third-party candidates are included.  Actually, it goes up slightly.  But McCain's drops 5 points.  
It gets weirder.  Barr only gets 2.6% of the vote, so he can't be responsible for McCain's whole 5-point drop.  Nader gets 4.2%.  This has got to mean that there are some people (at least 2.5%) whose preferences go, in this order,
NaderMcCainObama.
Go figure.  Ron Paul voters?  If you look at the trend lines, the level of support for Nader and Barr has been quite steady, so it's not a recent (post-FISA) phenomenon.
Of course, the states and the electoral vote are what really matter, and it's just July.  I assume that a lot of strays will come back to the Republican fold after things get bitter in September / October.  But it's still an interesting phenomenon, and one to keep an eye on.  Has anyone seen this discussed elsewhere?

This isn't a FISA post, though it starts out by mentioning FISA.  If you're sick of FISA debates, bear with me a sec.
This thought came to me as I was trying to understand why the FISA debate has played out mainly as a debate between people who want to forgive Obama's "cave" for reasons of political expediency, and people who are tired of seeing "Democrats folding like lawn chairs" (to quote tpmgary).

There's actually a third group.  People, like me, who think this bill was actually a decent-enough compromise on the merits, one that makes the situation better than it was in 2005. We may not post on DKos or TPM in numbers proportionate to our presence in the electorate, but I assure you there are a bunch of us. 

In other words, this wasn't just a debate about political expediency.  This was a genuine division inside the Democratic coalition.  Communitarian greens (like myself) actually disagreed with civil-liberties activists about the proper way to regulate the collection of foreign intelligence.

Now, if we (still) want to argue about FISA, I'd suggest taking the argument here

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/07/forgiving-the-fisa-cave.php#comment-2959396

where I wrote a comment explaining at more length why I don't think the FISA bill is a one-way ticket to executive tyranny.  Maybe I'm wrong about that, but either way . . .

here I'm more interested in a different question.  Why is it so hard for us, on the Left, to remember that we're part of a coalition of different interests?  The Democratic Party is not divided between true believers and people who just don't have the guts. It's a coalition of different interests: greens, economic populists, anti-war activists, civil rights activists, feminists, labor, internationalists, and, yes, the ACLU. We disagree on a lot of things -- and where we disagree, we may not act as forcefully as some of us would like. (Personally, I'd like the party to adopt environmental policies that are more radical than the rest of the coalition will buy right now.) But where we agree, we can act forcefully if we all hold onto the ball and run down the field with it together.

The Right understands itself this way, as a coalition.  I've done enough lurking to hear the way they talk.  They know that it's a tripod: social conservatives, nationalist hawks, and Chamber-of-Commerce types.  They don't expect to agree with each other on everything; though some of them are fierce evangelicals, they know they have to work with Catholics, Jews, and Ayn Rand atheists to get things done.

Democrats, on the other hand, think of themselves as a spectrum rather than a coalition.  There's the "far" left, and then there's the mushy middle.  Since there's always the danger that the mushy middle will sell the Party out, the far left figures that it has to get royally pissy all the time, or get steamrollered.  And inevitably, after about eight years of thinking this way, they start feeling so disenfranchised that they start voting for Nader, or staging fights at the convention.

I don't think people are going to vote for Nader this November, but I'd like to see our coalition last a little longer this time.  So I put the question to TPM readers: why is it so hard for Democrats to understand themselves as members of a coalition of genuinely different interests?  I have some speculations, but I'll save them for the comment section to avoid creating an (even longer) wall of text.

After reading Pirate Peet,
I found the rhymes refused to cease
And though I hate committing in-jokes
I couldn't keep from pushing send, folks.
So if you can't stand what you read here
Please blame it on the buccaneer.

EDMUND WILSON CRANKYPANTS
LOST HIS VIRGINITY IN FRANCE
TO A GAL NAMED MATAHARI
WHEN WOODROW LED THE JACKASS PARTY.

WHILE HE WAS STILL A HIGHSCHOOL WRESTLER
HE SHARED DISCOVERIES WITH TESLA,
AND LEARNED "DEEP TRUTHS OF RACE AND CLASS"
WHILE AIRSHIPS CONTAINED EXPLOSIVE GAS.

TIS A PITY ONE SO WISE
SHOULD USE ALL WISDOM TO DESPISE.
ODD, TOO, THAT A CLINTON-LOVING CYNIC
SHARES THE NAME OF A MARXIST CRITIC.

***

PIRATE PEET, PIRATE PEET
SPENT HIS WHOLE YOUTH WATCHING <i>WALL STREET</i>.
NOW HE'S NOT SURE WHOM TO ECHO:
CLINTON FLACK, OR GORDON GEKKO?

***

DESIDERO AUROLEU
IS A MAZE WITHOUT A WAYTHROUGH:
BALD GUY, CHIMP, OR SCARY GAMINE,
IT HAS FOR BLOGGERS' SOULS A FAMINE.
AND UNTIL THE HORRID MASK COMES DOWN
WE CANT EVEN USE THE RIGHT PRONOUN.

***
AD ABSURDUM, SOME CONJECTURE
DOESNT LIKE TO PREACH OR LECTURE.
HE PREFERS TO SPEND HIS TIME
WITH YOUTUBE AND A GLASS OF WINE.

***

EVAINNE, EVAINNE, CHANGED HER LOOKS
WHEN SHE FOUND THAT BLOKES GOT SPOOKED
BY AVATARS WITH WELL-PLACED TATS
SHE CHANGED HERSELF INTO A CAT.

EVAINNE, EVAINNE, CANT BE VAIN
(IN SPITE OF HER RHYMING NAME)
FOR INSTEAD OF BEING ARABELLA
SHE'D RATHER CHAT WITH AVERAGE FELLAS,
AND INSTREAD OF BEING OH-SO-FINE
SHE'S CONTENT TO SPEAK AS A MERE FELINE.

***

THE PRIMARY OVER, 'SGETTING BORING
TO ARGUE BOUT WHOSE OX IS GORING.
BUT IT MIGHT STILL BE WORTH OUR TIME,
IF ONLY TROLLS COULD LEARN TO RHYME.

EDMUND WILSON CRANKYPANTS
LOST HIS VIRGINITY IN FRANCE
TO A GAL NAMED MATAHARI
WHEN WOODROW LED THE JACKASS PARTY

WHILE HE WAS STILL A HIGHSCHOOL WRESTLER
HE SHARED DISCOVERIES WITH TESLA
AND LEARNED "DEEP TRUTHS OF RACE AND CLASS"
WHILE AIRSHIPS CONTAINED EXPLOSIVE GAS

TIS A PITY ONE SO WISE
SHOULD USE ALL WISDOM TO DESPISE.
ODD, TOO, THAT A CLINTON-LOVING CYNIC
SHARES THE NAME OF A MARXIST CRITIC.

I've seen a lot of efforts at "unity" threads.  Though we all have good intentions (or okay, most of us), it seems to be a hard thing to make work at this stage of the game.  No one really wants to be talked into giving up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <p>I thought I might propose a slightly different idea.  Remember back when you were still undecided?  There must have been something that appealed to you about the other Democratic candidates.  So Obama supporters, what do you like about Hillary?  Hillary supporters, what do you like about Obama?  Everybody, what do you like about Gravel?  Ground rules: no backhanded insults.  You can like something trivial about the other candidate, but you can't like "her failure to organize in caucus states."  Cheesy.  Also, I know we've all got a lot of reservations and qualifications at this point -- even strong moral reservations.  But just can them.  Bracket them.  Say them out loud to yourself, but don't type them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <p>Probably lame, but it seems worth a try.  I'll go in the first comment.

'Cause my momma taught me not to pile on when someone is down, defenseless, and disoriented -- even if he is a Republican.  Since Obama has been cleaning the floor with this guy, I'm inclined to be charitable and give him a little advice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
But the substance of my advice for John McCain will follow in the first comment, since I can't get paragraphing to work properly in the blogs themselves.