Is there a possibility that, having cobbled together some kind of tax-break/incentive package aimed at broadening access to health care, we might actually weaken the impetus for going ahead with the sweeping, across-the-board, truly universal health care reform that most of us agree is absolutely necessary?

I mean, let's think ahead to next spring. The new admin is grappling with a range of competing priorities. And naturally the Obama team wants to get everything done. But realistically, we are dealing with a political structure in Washington that has grown so dysfunctional during the Bush years that we cannot feel overly sanguine about bringing it immediately back up to speed -- even taking into account the Emanuel doctrine ("Never let a crisis go to waste") and the president-elect's awe-inspiring ability to multi-track.

I just foresee a danger that people on the Hill might be inclined to think, Okay, we've already addressed health care to some extent, let's turn our attention to energy and Iraq and Afghanistan and the tax package and Russia and Iran and, whoops, this new unforeseen problem that's just popped up, and Part II of the stimulus package and fending off these insane Republican counter-offensives that we can't safely ignore. Let's worry about all this stuff now, and get back to health care when we've stamped out all the brush fires. Only, whoops, now it's autumn, the mid-term elections are only a year out, it's getting a little hard to concentrate, my constituents are getting worried about all this new government spending. Feel me?

If 32% of the electorate has already voted by Nov 4, and Obama is winning this group by a very large margin, then McCain's marginal lead of about 1 point among remaining voters cannot shift the results very much.

So let's say there are 1000 voters in America. 320 will have voted by Nov 4, breaking thusly:

Obama 192
McCain 128

Kinda like the sample rates in my iTunes library, but anon. On Nov 4, McCain wins by one percent among the remaining 680 voters, with this result:

Obama 333
McCain 347

The overall vote comes out like this:

Obama 525
McCain 475

That's a 5-point win, not 6. But this is where the Pew numbers come from, I think.

This post, however, sorely tempts me. Well played, sir!

I fooled them by not drinking any coffee this morning. My problem lately is that as soon as my brain engages (even if it's in the middle of the night), I start worrying about the election. The only defense is to drag around half asleep.

In the face of this withering personal assault, Obama's campaign produced and aired a 30-minute political ad which was 100-percent positive. It never mentioned his opponent. It refuted the smears by presenting the essential truth of what kind of guy Obama really is -- albeit against a backdrop of soaring music and amber waves of grain.

I do not see what the problem is. It's easy enough to take a high-minded stand and deplore this or that bit of populist excess. But we've seen a long series of Democratic candidates wage high-minded, admirable, intellectually rigorous and losing campaigns. I for one am sick of it.

ULYSSES would still be a great novel if you slapped a beautiful glossy cover on it, and included a gushing blurb from Britney Spears. Obama would be the same guy if he fired his ad team, sat down at an unadorned table, broke out the pie charts, and lost the election.

Nobody would question your sincerity in raising these points. But I do think you're kind of crazy, or maybe just awfully politically naive. Your use of the term "propaganda" is defensible but nonetheless offensive, in my opinion. One might equally use terms like "sophistry" in connection with this sort of discussion.

It's as though somebody offered you a choice: You can see this man elected President, or you can see this man dragged through the street in sackcloth and ashes, but ultimately canonized by historians and remembered as the purest and noblest candidate who ever lost a race for the White House. And you stood there fretting, unable to choose.

What struck me was the melancholy tone of so much of it. The music reminded me a lot of the great score for Brokeback Mountain, and you had this series of stories, some of them rather heartbreaking, about people having a hard time in the Bush economy.

I wonder how big of an audience tuned in for this.

Zogby is kind of a stand-out because they are using 2004 turnout numbers to generate their 2008 likely-voter profile. Nate Silver and others have called them on this, but they're sticking to their methodology.

Other pollsters, I think, are trying to be more flexible and realistic -- but nobody will really know who's going to vote until election day. Who knows? Maybe Zogby will come out looking brilliant.

Still, it's heartening to know that those early Obama votes are already in the bank.

"If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will kill their children by accident"

I got rid of it finally because so many people didn't get it, and/or found it offensive.

When you run down the list of plausible alternatives -- Romney, Huckabee, Gingrich, Giuliani, et alia -- it's a frigging fool's gallery. Barack would have made mincemeat of any of them, don't you think?

This was clearly filmed at the same time he made his recent downticket ad (for the D. senate candidate in Washington?). I remember thinking, when I saw that ad, DAMN, these people know how to do things right.

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR SARAH PALIN!!!!

I suspect the key here is enthusiasm (or lack thereof). If I'm reading the latest NYT poll correctly, the number of people who view McCain favorably is actually LOWER than the number who say they're going to vote for him. Which suggests to me that lots of McCain "supporters" have zero enthusiasm for their candidate.

At the same time, Obama's favorable rating continues to increase, and is now higher than his ~49-50% standing in the polls. Which suggests that many straddlers don't really dislike the guy, though they may still plan to vote Republican out of habit or party loyalty or whatever.

I think the likelihood is that most Obama supporters really, actively WANT to vote for him, and thus are more likely to turn out. I don't think we can say that about the other side.

"Incredibly close" would seem to refer (perhaps subconsciously) to the book's sell-by date, which is now a scant two weeks off. Not much of a window to rack up royalties.

I think it's important to consider that Colin Powell expressed deep regret for his error in supporting the Iraq war -- and, also importantly, that he took personal responsibility for the consequences -- BEFORE the electoral tide began turning against the Republican party. This gives credence to the idea that he was speaking from the heart, not merely trying to salvage his own reputation.

You also have to consider that the rest of the Bush crowd -- from the guy at the top down to the anonymous drones in staff jobs and think tanks -- are still pushing the hard neocon line. The big neocon intellectuals may have abandoned Bush, but they've never been willing to admit that THEY, personally, were wrong. Powell is almost alone in this respect.

Like Speer in the Third Reich, Powell lent credibility and a veneer of dignity to a thuggush regime. Like Speer, he could have chosen to take a more courageous stand, at a much earlier time, and done the world some good.

But also like Speer, Powell (as noted above by a poster called Anew08) stands virtually alone among high-ranking members of the Bush administration in acknowledging the gravity of his error, and in a taking a share of personal responsibility for the consequences.

History has found Speer to be a problematic character, difficult to render judgment upon. The judges at Nuremberg spared him the noose and sentenced him instead to 20 years imprisonment. In his post-Nazi life he created a new persona for himself, as the only prominent repentant Nazi, through a seemingly endless series of books and interviews and other public statements. Some people never forgave him. Others, including prominent Jewish leaders, felt his contrition was sincere and came to admire his newfound moral courage.

I wonder if Powell will now spend the rest of his life, like Speer, trying to atone for his sins in the service of George Bush.

The impact of this endorsement will be upon those who -- like Powell himself -- initially supported the war and now have come to realize it was a mistake. There are a lot of these people, and many are traditional Republicans inclined to support McCain. Powell's words should encourage some of these people to feel that it's okay to vote Democratic this time around.

As such, his endorsement is probably of little interest to the Six-Pack Palin base, but of considerable interest to the kind of people turning up repeatedly in anecdotes from the field -- the older white person who tells a canvasser, "I've always voted Republican, but...."

We had a little talk.

This kind of thing pisses me off. And I mean, we live in liberal coastal Maine, where people ought to know better.

Somehow one expects more from the vaunted GOP slime machine.