Can Sarah Palin unite the Democratic Party? Yes she can! I have been trying to watch the Republican National Convention this week and really the only thing I could force myself to take in, whilst heavily medicated, was McCain's speech. I did choose coffee and chocolate as the main part of my regimen, but I am still on pain killers, and taking one was a serious error.

John McCain's speech was the most boring, annoying, and inadequate speech I have ever heard a nominee of either party give. The only thing that helped me remain awake, was the chatter on mydd and the green screen. I had visions of all of the things Colbert will do with that green screen, and it made me smile.

That was good, because I must say McCain's biography and Fred Thompson's introduction scared me to death. McCain was thankfully boring and not frightening. However I did get these horrible images of Fred Thompson, Joe Leiberman, and John McCain in the White House for the next four years, and had a very nasty zombie nightmare early this morning. I loves me some zombie movies, but perhaps I need to cut back.

I did not watch Palin, as I was out Thursday night. I am not yet prepared to subject myself to Mrs Palin. What I find odd, is that many of the people who tried to say that Obama or Clinton are not experienced or qualified to be POTUS, are giving Palin a total pass. I feel that John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for VP to be a terribly shameful objectification of women for the purpose of winning the White House. Sarah Palin is the only person running on the national tickets that has not earned her spot. For the republicans to use the worst kind of tokenism is disgusting. Does McCain think he could not die? How does he really think a President Palin would do for America?

Also posted on DailyKos.  Will be on Senate Guru and SwingState when my membership goes through...

Folks,

Hopefully this diary is timed slightly better than the last.  The halo of the RNC is starting to wear off, and McCain-Palin is going into the country to try and keep up what momentum they can.  Meanwhile, we've still got to deal with the state-by-state duels to take the Senate.

I will post my usual upfront fundraising plea here before getting into the meat of the topic.  Right now, Jim Martin has almost reached the $20k mark on ActBlue.  Is a goal of reaching $50k by the next week too high a mark to set?

Alright, now to the heart of the matter.  This is part two of a two part series.  In the first part, I brought out the first set pieces of Saxby Chambliss in the coming two-month TV slamfest.  The second part is about our side, with Jim Martin.

Every minute we spend debating palin's misstatements at the RNC and her missteps in Alaska is one minute we don't spend whacking John McCain on his own plethora of misstatements at the RNC and missteps everywhere.

Here is a simple sentence we all need to drill here, and drill now, deep into our brains:  We are running against John McCain, not sarah palin.

We are running against John McCain, not sarah palin.

Did you know McCain is a veteran? Did you know McCain is a POW? Did you also know he cannot tell the largest army hospital in DC from a middle school in Hollywood?

not sure anymore

The national tracking polls are already starting to show a modest 2-to-3 point bounce for the Palin/McCain McCain/Palin ticket.  That's a smaller bounce than Obama/Biden got from the Denver convention, but we won't know the full extent of the GOP bounce until Monday once voters have had time to process McCain's speech.

The national trackers will likely show that Palin McCain has pulled even with Obama, or at least gotten the same bounce Obama got.  That will be hardly surprising: after all, if an entire political party gets away with telling lie after lie and pretending it's exactly the opposite of the scum that it is without significant media pushback, it's likely to sway a few votes.

(Crossposted at <REDACTED>)

Let's be serious for a moment.

What is John McCain's path to victory?  Does he even have one?  If you look at Pollster.com's state of the race, you'll see that the numbers currently stand at 260 EVs for Obama, 179 for McCain, and 99 tossup.  In order to win the election, a candidate must have at least 270 electoral votes.  In other words, out of the 99 tossup EVs, Obama needs 10, while McCain needs 91.

It isn't completely hopeless for John McCain, though.  Let's examine how he might win this election.