Entries for August 2008

DENVER—James Carville told reporters last week that his advice for potential presidents is to pick a vice presidential candidate who will make the opposition strategists retch with worry. Well, he said it more pungently than that, but you get the idea.

Sarah Palin fulfills that criterion. The poor Obama folk—they had about 12 hours to enjoy and rest, after putting on a successful and historic convention, and they get up this morning to this stomach-churning bit of news.

DENVER—Obama's campaign aides seemed tense and weary in the hours before his speech, but expressed confidence that they had done as best they could in Denver, given the list of tasks they faced: to introduce Obama and his family to the country, to get Bill and Hillary Clinton on board in a show of Democratic unity, to highlight the contrast between the two candidates and to convey a compelling message of change.

DENVER—It is not too much of a simplification to say that, politically speaking, if you grew up as an ethnic Catholic kid in New York and its suburbs in the Fifties and the Sixties, you were destined to end up one of two ways.

DENVER—The cash-strapped convention here got an eleventh hour bailout from the American Federation of Teachers and AFSCME, the national public employees union.

The news reinforced Republican talking points (that the Democrats are tools of parasitic government workers, you know) but also served as a reminder of historic events from 100 years ago.

It was at a Democratic convention, in Denver in 1908, that the American Federation of Labor broke with precedent and endorsed a presidential candidate: William Jennings Bryan.

The candidate of cool has a cardinal mission when he accepts the Democratic Party's nomination for president before a cheering stadium crowd tonight.

Barack Obama has completed his arduous conquest of Democratic hearts; now he needs to reveal his own.

That's what I'm reporting in The Denver Post in the morning.

As Obama prepares to take the stage, Americans are telling pollsters two things. They are ready for change, but unsure of the course he wants to steer. They don't know what moves him, and they don't know that he understands and cares about their lives.

DENVER—I just filed my analysis for the morning's Denver Post, in which I note that "there is no denying that the "handling" of Bill and Hillary has been a significant distraction for the Obama team at this convention."

But will it matter in November?

DENVER—We're here in Colorado because Howard Dean chose to stage his convention in a Western city to expand the electoral map, by sending a signal to the region's voters that Democrats want their support.

Will it work?

Dean's lasting legacy as Democratic chairman will surely be his "50-state strategy"—a once-controversial tactic of spending money to put Democratic boots on the ground all across the country, even in red states like Indiana, North Carolina, or Alaska, so that the party could capitalize on unforeseen opportunities.

The Obama team seems to share his thinking. Obama stole a march on Hillary Clinton by winning delegates in virtually uncontested caucus states like Idaho and Colorado, while her campaign focused on titans like Ohio.

And now, as they face John McCain in the general election, the Obama campaign seems intent on growing the number of battleground states.