Dave Barry, Miami Herald.com

 

The Democratic Party has gathered in Denver for what will be without question one of the most exciting political conventions in decades.

 

Granted, this is like saying that Moe was without question one of the smartest Stooges. The political conventions have been pointless and boring for years, culminating in 2004, when MSNBC, during its prime-time coverage of the Republican convention, broadcast 38 straight minutes of Chris Matthews snoring and drooling into his lap. (This got by far the highest ratings.)

 

But this year will be different. This year there is high drama in the Mile High City as the Democrats gather under their official 2008 convention slogan: ``A Unified Party, United in Unity Together As One, Undivided.''

 

Already there has been sporadic gunfire between the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton delegates. Political observers see this as indication that there is still some underlying tension between the two sides.

 

Hillary lost the nomination to a guy who has roughly the same amount of executive governmental experience as Hannah Montana. Hillary is like: ``Are you KIDDING me?''

 

Sen. Clinton is scheduled to address the convention Tuesday night, when she will either call on her supporters to unite behind Obama, or attempt to snatch the nomination and escape with it by helicopter to a secret mountain fortress. Read article.

 

Jim Geraghty, NRO.com

 

The fun thing about an Obama-Biden ticket is that the McCain campaign can point to a new awkward comment by Joe Biden — either on the importance of experience, in praise of McCain, or in support of invading Iraq — that contradicts the stands and qualities of the Democratic nominee for every day from now until Election Day.

 

 Assessing Obama’s Iraq plan on September 13, 2007: “My impression is [Obama] thinks that if we leave, somehow the Iraqis are going to have an epiphany” of peaceful coexistence among warring sects. “I’ve seen zero evidence of that.”

 

 Speaking to the New York Observer: Biden was equally skeptical — albeit in a slightly more backhanded way — about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

 

 Also from that Observer interview: “But — and the ‘but’ was clearly inevitable — he doubts whether American voters are going to elect ‘a one-term, a guy who has served for four years in the Senate,’ and added: ‘I don’t recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic.’” Read article.

 

RightWingNews.com

 

Right now, you might be saying "Teach, are you drunk? Have you drunk the liberal kool aid? Or, are you just a bit fetched in the head?" Maybe a bit of 1 and 3, but, let's think about what the pick of Biden brings.

 

There is not much point in going over what so many pundits and columnists wrote Saturday. The basics that most, both left and right came to, was "he really ads nothing to the ticket. He won't bring in many votes, he won't help with the South, he makes Obama look like the foreign policy neophyte he really is, heck, he makes Barry look like a neophyte in most things. Joe is much more qualified to be president then Barry. He has those massive ties to lobbyists that Barry whines about. He is a massive Washington insider. This has really pissed of Hillary's supporters. Etc, and so on."

 

And, sure, there were many on the left and right who wrote that this was a massively bad pick. Some on the Left tried to spin it positively, but, you know they were popping out a post quickly so they could get back to cleaning the bathroom.

 

And women have not been entirely enthused with the pick.

 

But, this was a great pick. No, still not drunk.

 

The reason is simple: Biden carries a massive amount of baggage, as so many have pointed out. The gaffes, the racism, the runaway mouth, the lobbyist ties, the Washington insider mentality. And, how much and how often will the right side of the Internet, along with the miniscule Conservative leaning media, folks like Rush, Hannity, Levin, et all, bring Joe's negatives up? And when he does or says something dumb? Even the liberal media might come out from their doggie houses and notice. Read article.

 

Charles Hurt, NY Post.com

 

Political marriages are never pretty.

 

Given the inbred cesspool that is Washington politics, it's always easy to dig up damning statements that today's bedfellows made about one another in the last election.

 

It's simply part of this sordid game where loyalty doesn't last one inch beyond a politician's most cynical personal interests and insatiable self-gratification.

 

Just ask Elizabeth Edwards.

 

Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden as his running mate is certainly no exception.

 

It didn't take John McCain's campaign more than a few minutes to dredge up Biden's unvarnished view of Obama. At least, that was Biden's view before he won the vice-presidential lottery.

 

"I think he can be ready but right now, I don't believe he is," Biden said of Obama. "The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training."

 

Politicians hate being reminded of past statements like this. They want to explain: "I didn't really mean that. It's just what I had to say in a campaign and you should never believe anything I say during a campaign."

 

But that would not be in their best political interest, so they never say that.

 

Admitting he was wrong is not nearly as painful for to a politician as admitting he was lying. Read article.

 

Maureen Callahan, NY Post.com

 

Forty years after the '68 convention, Obama is everything the Dems wanted. Yet they still protest.

 

Ask people who were there, and they will tell you that Barack Obama's candidacy is a direct descendant of the 1968 Democratic Convention: the intra-party fighting, the metastasizing anti-war movement, the campaign against poverty and for civil rights, the riots in Chicago's streets.

 

Today, with the country mired in an unpopular war and a worsening recession, one would assume that the emergence of a young, charismatic, popular nominee, the first black candidate for President, would result in an ecstatic exercise in party unity, a 40th anniversary celebration of what '68 wrought, optimistic and forward-looking.

 

One would be wrong.

 

"I think we'll blow out '68, dwarf it," says Glenn Spagnuolo, founder of the unfortunately named Recreate '68. Read article.

 

Michael Knox Beran, NRO.com

 

Obama’s lofty religious rhetoric fails to address liberalism’s disastrous effort to secularize society.

 

Barack Obama talks a lot about faith. Curious as to how his spiritual inspirations might concretely affect his politics, I went to his website and clicked on “faith.” I found the usual boilerplate about “the global battle against AIDS” and a call — now familiar to connoisseurs of the Obama style — for “deeper, more substantive discussion.” I also found an exhortation to “religious people” to translate their “concerns” into “universal values.”

 

Few values can be more universal than that of human freedom. Few have historically been as intertwined with religious sensibility. Yet Obama, the candidate of faith, has done little to oppose modern liberalism’s embrace of a secularizing agenda that has weakened the power of religion to promote the “universal value” of freedom at home and around the world. 

 

“If you will not have God (and He is a jealous God),” T. S. Eliot said, “you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin.” Eliot’s warning has not been taken seriously by liberals, among them Obama himself, who in five areas of current controversy sides with the secularists: Read article.

 

Paul R. Hollrah, NMJ.us

 

The next seven days will no doubt be the most critical in Barack Obama’s life...so critical, in fact, that he may want to bind and gag his wife; the Rev. Jeremiah Wright; Father Pfleger; his former terrorist friends, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn; and everyone else who has damaged him by speaking on his behalf, endorsing him, or standing at his side.

 

With John McCain pulling five points ahead of Obama among likely voters, it wouldn’t take much for a substantial number of super-delegates to turn against him. After all, that’s why Democrats have super-delegates. They play the same role for Democrats in the nominating process that the Electoral College plays in the General Election. They’re there to prevent really dumb things from happening: e.g. the nomination of a naïve and inexperienced egomaniac who would do great and long-lasting harm to the country.

 

And now that Obama has given the Clintons the opening they wanted...the ability to place Hillary’s name in nomination at the convention in Denver...he could find himself going down to defeat as the super-delegates come to the stark realization of what happens when their party nominates radical left candidates. They’ll be remembering what happened when they nominated Humphrey, McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry, and they’ll be wondering if they want to bet on an inside straight for the ninth time in forty years. Read article.

 

Jared Allen, The Hill.com 

 

Republicans are planning quite the party crash at next week’s Democratic convention in Denver.

 

Traditionally a time for one party to own the spotlight and the opposition to linger in the shadows, Republicans are determined to steal as much thunder as possible from the Democrats during their week-long coronation of Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), the party’s likely presidential nominee.

 

To accomplish this, Republicans — in coordination with the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) — are set to bring to Denver a list of heavy-hitting surrogates, including two of McCain’s former presidential rivals and multiple members of Congress, who will do on-site media interviews all week long.

 

Leading the list of Republicans heading to Denver are former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Romney will anchor the GOP’s Tuesday press availability — the same day Obama’s former presidential rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), is scheduled to speak to the Democrats.

 

The heavy GOP presence at the Democratic convention is a sharp change from four years ago, when there was not much of a response team on the ground in Boston. Read article.

 

Paul Kengor, Political Mavens.com

 

We recently posted an article on the controversy over Barack Obama’s votes in the Illinois legislature on a statewide version of the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA)-i.e., legislation requiring medical personnel to provide treatment to infants who unexpectedly survive abortion procedures. Our point was to clarify the record and to add a crucial “rest of the story” that is still being missed: how this legislation sailed right through the Illinois legislature once its primary obstacle-Barack Obama-left the Illinois Senate for the U.S. Senate. In both senates, Illinois and the United States, the born-alive legislation was passed unanimously, but only in the absence of Senator Barack Obama.

 

This issue is really heating up now, as Obama addressed the subject over the weekend in a question from CBN’s David Brody. A major witness now being featured on news shows is Jill Stanek, the nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, where babies were aborted and those that survived were left to die. We interviewed Stanek at length for our article.

 

Obama, hailed for being smooth and articulate, fumbles and bumbles when forced to answer these questions on human life. He is clearly uncomfortable on this terrain, sensing how badly his track record is now hurting him. Yet, this is a second mistake by Obama, and a more serious one. Read article.

 

IBD Editorials.com

 

Election '08: The saying that a man is known by the company he keeps is true of political relationships. In Barack Obama's case, some of the groups that support him are an indictment of his political orientation.

 

Among Obama's biggest admirers, for example, is one Pepe Lozano. Unknown at the national level, Lozano is more of a small-time agitator, just as Obama was in his community organizing days in Chicago. Maybe that explains part of the attraction.

 

But it's more likely that Lozano, a leader in the Chicago Young Communist League and an editorial board member of the People's Weekly World, newspaper of the Communist Party USA, finds that Obama is the communist party's best hope because of the junior senator's far-left positions.

 

"This is a history-making process," Lozano told a Chicago gathering of about 250 in June, "and we will be missing it if we don't do all we can to elect Barack Obama president."

 

The next month, the People's Weekly World editorialized in favor of Obama, calling his a "transformative candidacy that would advance progressive politics for the long term." Read article.

 

Peggy Noonan, Online WSJ.com

 

Why is it a real race now, with John McCain rising in the polls and Barack Obama falling? There are many answers, but here I think is an essential one: The American people have begun paying attention.

 

It's hard for our political class to remember that Mr. Obama has been famous in America only since the winter of '08. America met him barely six months ago! The political class first interviewed him, or read the interview, in 2003 or '04, when he was a rising star. They know him. Everyone else is still absorbing.

 

This is what they see:

 

An attractive, intelligent man, interesting, but—he's hard to categorize. Is he Gen. Obama? No, no military background. Brilliant Businessman Obama? No, he never worked in business. Famous Name Obama? No, it's a new name, an unusual one. Longtime Southern Governor Obama? No. He's a community organizer (what's that?), then a lawyer (boo), then a state legislator (so what, so's my cousin), then U.S. senator (less than four years!).

 

There is no pre-existing category for him.

 

Add to that the wear and tear of Jeremiah Wright, secret Muslim rumors, media darling and, this week, abortion.

 

It took a toll, which led to a readjustment. His uniqueness, once his great power, is now his great problem. Read article.

 

Wynton C. Hall, NRO.com

 

‘I think Obama is not tall on experience,” Robert Redford told the Irish Times last month, “but I believe he’s a really good person. I hope he’ll win. I think he will. If he doesn’t, you can kiss the Democratic party goodbye.”

 

The second part of the dual prediction is, of course, overstated; the Democratic party will remain intact should Sen. Barack Obama taste defeat in November. But it’s more right than it may seem at first. The 2008 presidential election represents the Republican party’s best opportunity to advance its agenda in recent presidential history.

 

You read that right.

 

If history teaches us anything, it is that national political parties rise and fall by the psychological political warfare each wages upon the other. With Democrats’ electoral expectations at an all-time high this presidential cycle, the fallout from a 2008 presidential defeat would widen the already-expanding fissures in the Democratic party’s base.

 

Consider the fallout that might ensue for the party’s voting coalition if McCain wins.

 

Democratic women would come away disillusioned at the prospects of having missed the chance to run the first female presidential candidate, and never knowing what might have been. Black voters — nine out of ten vote Democrat — would be deeply disenchanted that the first black candidate for president lost amid the single-best political climate for Democrats since Watergate. Read article.

 

Gerard Baker, TimesOnline.co.uk

 

Barack Obama suddenly looks vulnerable. And the more the focus is on him, the less likely he is to become president.

 

There's trouble in paradise. Cancel the coronation. Send back the commemorative medals. Put those “Yes We Can” T-shirts up on eBay. Keep the Change.

 

Barack Obama's historic procession to the American presidency has been rudely interrupted. The global healing he promised is in jeopardy. If you're prone to emotional breakdown, you might want to take a seat before I say this. He might not win.

 

How can it be, you ask? Didn't we see him just last month speaking to 200,000 adoring Germans in Berlin? Didn't he get the red carpet treatment in France - France of all places? Doesn't every British politician want to be seen clutching the hem of his garment?

 

All true. But as cruel geography and the selfish designs of the American Founding Fathers would have it, Europeans don't get to choose the US president. Somewhere along the way to the Obama presidency, somebody forgot to ask the American people. Read article.

 

Liz Sidoti & Brian Bakst, Yahoo News.com

 

Democratic dominance in presidential elections has been the norm for decades throughout much of the country's union-strong industrial Great Lakes region. Republican John McCain hopes to upset that history.

 

The GOP presidential candidate is mounting strong challenges to Democratic rival Barack Obama in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and eyeing Minnesota — four states that have thwarted Republicans in at least four straight elections. The Arizona senator is also fighting to hang on to Ohio, a bellwether that President Bush won twice.

 

"For all the talk about changing the electoral map, the core of it is still the same — right here," said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.

 

This region has been a central part of every White House race for 30-some years because Democratic presidential candidates have had to win a huge share of its electoral votes to have any hope of assembling the 270 needed to win. Together the five states where McCain sees opportunity have 78 electoral votes; Illinois' 21 votes are considered safe for Obama, its favorite son U.S. senator.

 

This year McCain views the region as his best, if not his only, chance to keep a Republican in the White House. Read article.

 

David M. Brown, Mike Wereschagin & Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Live.com

 

Behind the flashy stages and carefully scripted events lie years of work by thousands of people -- meticulous planning on a huge scale, all meant to rally the faithful and show a party unified in support of Obama or McCain.

 

Listen closely, though, and shouts of discontent can be heard amid conventioneers' cheers.

 

Neither party is as unified as its leaders would like. Malcontents -- angry about the Iraq war, abortion, Hillary Clinton's loss or McCain's victory -- will do what they can to get their points across, threatening the carefully constructed facades. Party organizers will work to hold it together.

 

"These are about whipping up support," said John Baick, associate professor of history at Western New England College in Springfield, Mass. Though the ostensible purpose of the conventions is to gather party delegates and vote for a nominee, that vote is little more than another scripted show of support, he said.

 

"They weren't truly ever supposed to be an exercise in democracy," Baick said. "This is not a New England town meeting." Read article.

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