The time is approaching for VP announcement by Barack Obama.  Who will it be and when will it be?  The best time is really at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night by Mark Warner.  Here he could announce Tim Kaine as his VP choice to get people to focus on his message instead of any message by Hillary that may be off subject.

First of all, let me say that my best wishes are with Congresswoman's Jones's family.  She was a true Democrat and her leadership will be missed.

Before I get into VP talk, I must say I am disgusted by the lack of class on dailykos.  I thought higher of the people here, and I suppose it is fair to say any victories Democrats achieve is in spite of and not because of your so called support.  Aside from the admin and the rare member, this site is made up of juvenile amateurs.  Sad, truly.

As far as VP news goes I was 100 percent wrong, Evan Bayh was not rolled out today, but he is still the favorite, and I am not the only one to say so.  The page run by Time Magazine also reports similar conventional wisdom.  

Yes, by gum and by gosh.

And since I am grumpy I am going to share it with you.

3 things have me grumpy.

1. All this VP talk

2. All this poll talk

3. All this HRC talk

It's gotten to the point I do not even go out to the movies or show at all.

More after the break.

The New York Times reports that "Allies Ask Obama to Make 'Hope' More Specific," which I'm all for, but I'm not in complete agreement with one of these allies:

In the blunter words of Gov. Phil Bredesen, Democrat of Tennessee: “Instead of giving big speeches at big stadiums, he needs to give straight-up 10-word answers to people at Wal-Mart about how he would improve their lives.”

This quote all-too-easily evokes an episode of The West Wing (my political nerd credentials are all in order, thank you very much!) and the comparison I'm forced to make is not between Obama and the idealistic and inspirational Jed Bartlet, but between Obama and Bartlet's meatheaded opponent, Robert Richie.

(By the way, this post originally appeared in shorter form on my blog, Agora Americana)

OMG, not another Veep Diary!

Yeah, I know, nobody asked me, but...

... if I have to guess -- and like each of the 122,381 other Kossacks (approximate calculation) who have opined on this subject, I do have to guess -- I'm going with the same line of reasoning that Marc Ambinder mentioned yesterday in this post on his blog.

Ambinder relates some advice that John Kerry gave Obama about choosing a running mate:

Choose someone, he told Obama, that you trust completely. Don't expect the process to build trust. Don't choose someone with the expectation that you'll develop a trust.

No surprise there.  It's no secret that Kerry was disappointed by John Edwards' performance as a running mate.

Alot of us are expats, it seems, and some are so because of politics. But are YOU registered to vote in the upcoming US elections? Are your friends??

Because we have to do it by snail mail, and because many US county clerks are absolutely swamped this year with new voter registrations, it's a good idea to begin the process by early to mid September.  

Both the New York Times and the LA Times had articles today, discussing Obama's stealth negative ad campaign.  Well, he's out with two others it looks like, which I have not seen until now.  (If they are not new, then apologies, but they were just added it looks like to BarackObamadotcom on YouTube tonight).    

Recent polls show Obama slipping versus McCain.  How can that be when we can all see how much smarter and better Obama is?  The answer might be in the instincts that we inherited from our stone age ancestors.

When men choose a president, at least some part of our thinking is probably those stone age instincts we used in selecting the leader of the war party.  Women probably didn’t do much of the stone age war, so they might have some other kind of default hardware—mate choosing, for example.  It’s entire plausible that the criteria that served for those stone age war leaders are less than perfectly applicable to modern circumstances, but aspiring politicos need to keep those old instincts in mind.

What did you want in your SA war guy?  Courage, leadership, trustworthiness, initiative, pugnacity, vigor, celerity in judgment and action, decisiveness, and good judgment.  Conversely, you didn’t want cowardice, meekness,  passivity, lassitude, vacillation, or bad judgment.  Looking at the list it’s easy to see places where McCain scores well.  Obama is a listener and a consensus builder, and these can be mistaken for lack of initiative, leadership, and decisiveness.  Similarly his thoughtfulness and nuance.  

We all hate how the results of the 2004 Presidential election came to pass.

We are all working hard to make sure that result is not repeated in 2008.

I think I've found something cool that could help Democrats and progressives everywhere visualize what could be in 2008.

More after the jump.

We know there are lots of smart, creative visitors to this site every day.  And together, we are far smarter and more creative than any of us alone.  Best of all, we know that Actual, Real Live Obama Staffers come here and check out what's going on!  So, calling the Great Kossack Group-Mind!  Let's work together and try to come up with some great ideas for future Obama for President commercials.

Those who aren't quite ready to post an ad idea, please feel free to comment on why other people's ideas will or won't work, and to offer suggestions on how they could make them better.

Just to show how easy it is, I'll go first.

No one wants to keep the Republican out of The White House more than I do.  I support Obama and I will vote for him.  

McCain has won praise from the media for all of his bluster and tough talk on Russia.  These are the folks he refers to as "my base" and that have cozied up with the Senator for bbq at his private residence, so it's not surprising that they're eating up neocon John's act.
http://www.cnn.com/...

However, people that are looking objectively at the Georgia conflict are reaching a different conclusion.  Had we pursued the policies recommended by McCain in the past years regarding Russia, we would have forfeited most of the means we currently have at our disposal to put pressure on them.

Lately, again, in an attack that is hardly link-worthy, John McCain took Barack Obama to task for taking his presumptuous trip to Iraq... and for not visiting Iraq since, get this, January 2006! How stupid Obama must be, to mount a 50-state strategy in a year where, yes, there are 51 states. With a July 2006 population of 26,783,383 (and falling), I'm pretty sure the McCain camp is counting on Iraq's 40-50 electoral votes in November, even though Iraq's "Caliph" endorses our guy.

John McCain, it seems, is running for Emperor. And perhaps that's a fitting issue to address in this campaign, the first (to my knowledge) where neither candidate was born on mainland U.S. Two candidates from colonial reaches of empire strive to address its overextension. With PNAC's progenitors putting their tail between their legs and running, let's take a look at the election through colonial lenses, as you travel with me to the once-sovereign nation of There'sMoreland.  

Image: Blank Black Screen for 3 seconds
Audio:Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick (Old alarm clock/bomb style ticking sound twice per second. Ticking continues thru ad.


Announcer(soft non-attack voice): "Which John McCain are you going to vote for?"


Image on screen for 15 seconds: Boots/Helmet/Rifle fallen soldier image.
Text overly: 4144 american heroes dead
Audio: only the audio clips of John McCain: "Bomb bomb bomb Iran" "Iraq" "Russia" "War" "War" "War" "That's not too important. What's important is the casualties" "Q:Troops in Iraq for 50 yrs? A:Make it a hundred...that would be fine by me." "...cold war. This is an act of aggession"


Image on screen for 9 seconds: Distraught 50yr old couple at kitchen table with bills image.
Text overlay: # Jobs lost
Audio: only the audio clips of John McCain: "The issue of economics is not something I've understood" "Q: At what point do you move from middle class to rich A:How about $5 million"


Image on screen for 3 seconds, split screen: One side McCain hugging Bush, other side McCain and Bush holding birthday cake.
Text overlay: Large ? mark in middle of screen.
Audio: Old alarm clock goes off ringing loudly.

Given the ugly scenarios and development sequel to the military tactics by the Georgia state against South Ossetia and the emphatic response by Russia in a similar manner, one is left with the fundamental question of how did this happen and who might have started this pseudo- cold war II?

Hi Guys!

As you, no doubt, know by now, I own a retail store.  And, being uberblue, I carry blue merchandise, and not red merchandise.  So, for example, if you want a coffee cup where all the red states turn blue when you pour in hot water, you can buy it from us.  If you want a coffee cup where all the blue states turn red, you'll have to buy it somewhere else.  

As it happens, we also have the widest selection of jigsaw puzzles in Chicago.  So, when the new Obama and McCain puzzles came out, we bought the Obama puzzles, and not the McCain puzzles.

JUMP!

This should be viewed as research.
As I watched the McCain ads and then saw the change in the polls, the fever, the chills, the abdominal pain and the "oh crap" feeling started; I had been struck by the 2000 Gore-Bush anxiety virus. Instead of just listening to the pundits explain the significance, I decided that it was time to see what the research says about negative campaigning and campaign ads. Do they make a difference? Are they effective? Does McCain have a chance of success if he continues to use them? Is it wise for Obama to refrain from using them? Here are the results. It's a long one.

I have distilled the basic conclusions of each and I have included a more detailed explanation if you wish more information and the source. The first set of numbered items correspond to the items that follow below. Just match them.

I have made my own conclusions about the research but I would really be interested in what others think; thus, I have not given mine. They’re in my head rattling around looking for some logic and common sense. So, does Obama have anything to worry about? Should he join McCain in negative campaigning?

I was over at Factcheck.org today. Unfortunately their analysis of Obama and McCain stretching the truth lately hits both of them about the same. There is this letter John McCain wrote Barack Obama in 2006, however:

McCain (letter to Obama) Feb. 6, 2006: I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere. ... I'm embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. Again, sorry for the confusion, but please be assured I won't make the same mistake again.

Straight talk?