Political Base

First here's some B-roll of Barack Obama (D) interacting with troops in Kuwait:

Secondly, here's what a McCain adviser e-mailed to The Atlantic's Mark Ambinder after it was learned that Prime Minister Maliki endorsed the Obama plan for withdrawal:

Via e-mail, a prominent Republican strategist who occasionally provides advice to the McCain campaign said, simply, "We're fucked." No response yet from the McCain campaign, although here's what McCain said the last time Maliki mentioned withdrawal: "Since we are succeeding, then I am convinced, as I have said before, we can withdraw and withdraw with honor, not according to a set timetable. And I’m confident that is what Prime Minister Maliki is talking about, since he has told me that for many meetings we’'ve had."

And here's Ambinder's take:

This could be one of those unexpected events that forever changes the way the world perceives an issue. Iraq's Prime Minister agrees with Obama, and there's no wiggle room or fudge factor. This puts John McCain in an extremely precarious spot: what's left to argue? to argue against Maliki would be to predicate that Iraqi sovereignty at this point means nothing.

Seems that presidential candidate Bob Barr (L) has just arrived here in Austin, bought a Netroots Nation registration, and wants to meet people...Go figure.

UPDATE: Daily Kos grabbed a photo of Barr listening to a session on the 2008 Senate and House races. That's where I saw him.

Unexpectedly dropping-in on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's breakfast event this morning at Netroots Nation here in Austin, Texas was none other than former Vice President Al Gore. As you can imagine, the 2,000 plus in attendance were ecstatic with his appearance. After short remarks, Gore joined Speaker Pelosi for a Q&A with the audience. It was fantastic.

It's quite clear just how vital of a role the netroots are playing for the Democratic Party. The countless political websites (like Political Base) are proving to be vehicles for millions of people to debate, organize, share information, and influence the decision-makers within the Democratic Party. That point has been made clear over the past few days with this morning's breakfast, Thursday night's visits by DNC Chairman Howard Dean and retired General Wesley Clark, the dozens of House and Senate candidates that are here, and leading voices in the current political debate like Richard Clarke, John Dean, George Lakoff, and Paul Krugman. Even now, there is no equivalent structure on the right that wields any kind of attention or influence.

This is a very exciting time for the emerging Democratic majority that is continuing to come together over the past few cycles, and it's being built on the backs of ordinary activists and not simply limited to those who can write big checks or bundle contributions. While those are still important pieces to ensuring a well-funded movement, the party has been expanded and the rank-and-file are finding their collective voices are being listed to and helping to drive the direction of the Democratic Party. And we're winning elections in the process and are all very optimistic about what's about to come in November in Congress and the White House.

Here's a photo from today's breakfast:

Today, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in an interview with Der Spiegel expressed his support for Barack Obama's (D) withdrawal plan from Iraq...by name:

SPIEGEL: Would you hazard a prediction as to when most of the US troops will finally leave Iraq?

Maliki: As soon as possible, as far as we're concerned. US presidential candidate Barack Obama is right when he talks about 16 months. Assuming that positive developments continue, this is about the same time period that corresponds to our wishes.

SPIEGEL: Is this an endorsement for the US presidential election in November? Does Obama, who has no military background, ultimately have a better understanding of Iraq than war hero John McCain?

Maliki: Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems. Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited.

A great start to Obama's overseas trip and not what the McCain campaign wanted to hear...

The highlight of yesterday's Netroots Nation conference was one of the warm-up acts to last night's keynote address by DNC Chairman Howard Dean. It was when retired General Wesley Clark (D) -- a hugely popular figure among the netroots -- spoke to more than 2,000 of us in the Austin Convention Center.

During Clark's remarks, he thanked the netroots for their ferocious push-back on the inane attacks on him by the McCain campaign after his appearance last month on Face the Nation and made no bones about what was the driving those attacks:

"Someone said to me 'This is a playbook operation by the right wing freak machine, the great freak show where they take a statement, distort it, blast it out of context and make it personal. They are so good at it they did all three steps in three hours and you fought back and I'm grateful for you from the bottom of my heart.'"

It reaffirmed for me why I wish Barack Obama (D) would select Clark as his running mate.

The latest poll results find Republicans are as excited about this presidential race as a visit to the dentist:

For now, the numbers favor Obama: 38 percent of his supporters say the election is exciting compared to 9 percent of McCain's. Sixty-five percent of Obama's backers say they are hopeful about the campaign, double McCain's, and the Democrat's supporters are three times likelier to express pride.

Anyone still unsure that the corporate media is trying to play up the poll results that show a close race and ignore the results (like a big Obama lead) that shows a not-so-close race?

Today, ABC News and The Washington Post were called out for doing just that.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting story today that Republicans aren't having much luck getting their netroots to take hold and sprout. Meanwhile, the media is swarming down here in Austin as the leading voices in politics have come to speak to us. Lots to write about...

How concerned is John McCain (R) about the media frenzy over Barack Obama's (D) upcoming overseas trip?

Black said the McCain campaign will ask for equal time if the networks run interviews with Obama.

You can sense the panic starting to set in over McCain's inability to compete with Obama when it comes to attention and coverage and that's creating growing problems for McCain in the swing states where he's falling further behind and there's barely 100 days left in the general election.

Hurray for pollster Mark Mellman for pointing out how little the media -- particularly CNN -- knows about polling and what those numbers mean in the context of this presidential race, contrary to their "analysis":

I am fascinated by the continuing effort to “minimize” Obama’s lead in the polls. News organizations ought to be cautious in interpreting poll results and their bearing on elections, but many are doing statistical back flips to declare this race close. Witness a recent CNN headline reporting on a 50 percent-45 percent Obama lead in their poll — “New CNN Poll: Obama, McCain in a statistical dead heat.”

Presumably, the “statistical dead heat” is a function of the poll’s 3.5 percentage-point margin of error, which makes it possible that McCain’s support is a few points higher and Obama’s a few points lower.

Possible, but not likely. Margin of error is at the same time both vastly underused in interpreting polls and vastly overused. Underused in that not every two-point shift in a tracking poll is meaningful; overused in that not every possibility that fits within the “margin of error” is equally likely. A few quick calculations reveal that in this CNN survey there is a 95 percent probability that Obama leads McCain. Perhaps not by 5 points, maybe by 2 or 3, but the odds are overwhelming that this poll is not a dead heat.

Add to that the fact that five other publicly released, conventional telephone polls were done during the same period and every single one of them showed Obama ahead by no fewer than four points. Together these polls represent a sample of nearly 9,000 interviews, which would have a margin of error of just 1 point.

Mellman then suggests that Obama's lead is, conservatively, at least four points and then provides some context in what that means in terms of the Electoral College:

The Electoral College offers yet another metric for measuring the magnitude of a four-point margin. A popular-vote victory of that size implies winning about 310-325 electoral votes.

First Read points out that Barack Obama (D) has long predicted that African-American turnout in the general election would increase by 30 percent if he was the nominee. Here's what they discovered would happen to the electoral map with such an increase, all other things being equal:

In Georgia, the GOP presidential nominee's average margin of victory in the past four elections was 216,000 votes. If 30% more voting-age blacks go to the polls in November than the four-year average -- with all else equal, and Obama capturing all of those votes -- he would win the state by 84,000 ballots. Should 90% of those voters go for Obama, a figure he achieved among blacks in some primaries this year, he would still have enough to win the state and its 15 electoral votes.

If Obama reached his goal of a 30% increase and brought all those new black voters into his fold, he could also win in Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Virginia and Florida. Wins in the six states would give him 81 new electoral votes -- enough to beat Arizona Sen. John McCain even if the Republican won almost every other toss-up state in the nation, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Ohio. A 30% boost in black turnout also could pull Obama into a tie with McCain in Mississippi. And in South Carolina, a conservative state that went to President Bush by 17 percentage points four years ago, Obama could come within 17,000 votes -- less than a percentage point. Ditto in North Carolina, a state often mentioned as a possible Southern pickup for Obama."

Shhhhhhh. Don't tell John McCain (R).

Let's hope he keeps believing that Obama's play for the South is simply to "create this image of momentum and enthusiasm that frankly is just not out there."

Of all the news items that cross the wire and blogs, I think these three nuggets -- on top of today's staggering fundraising disclosure by Barack Obama (D) -- should give John McCain (R) considerable heartburn:

#1:

Obama Campaign Is Making Progress With Evangelical Voters (US News)

Not that anyone is predicting that Obama will wrest a majority of conservative Christian voters away from McCain, who was favored by 64 percent of white evangelical voters surveyed in a CNN-sponsored poll earlier this month. That's without any appreciable McCain outreach to conservative Christians. But it's also far less than the 78 percent who voted for Bush in 2004, and Obama, supported by 30 percent of evangelicals in that same poll, has been working to chip away at least a few more percentage points from McCain. Conservative leaders figure that if Obama can wrap up support from at least 35 percent of self-identified white evangelicals and a majority of Catholics, he would win in November.

Though recent polls show the race nationally has tightened, with McCain gaining ground, there continues to be opportunity for Obama to pick up evangelical voters—even according to McCain partisans, who have been disappointed in their candidate's lack of a rock-the-evangelical-vote strategy. "The evangelical movement is changing," says a major McCain fundraiser. "It's moving to a bigger place—it's not just pro-life, but includes people who care deeply about homelessness, the environment, Darfur."

#2:

Arizona Donors Give McCain Cold Shoulder (Washington Independent)

Kyl is one of a group of leading Arizona Republican fund-raisers more active in raising money for Bush than they have, to date, for McCain. Many expected names appear on McCain's Arizona big contributor list -- but there are glaring omissions. Leading GOP state elected officials and some key state party activists are giving far less financial support to the party's national candidate this election cycle than in 2000 and 2004 -- though their favorite son is the likely nominee.

#3:

Obama Campaign Opens 20 New Field Offices In Virginia (TPM)

Here's another real sign that the Obama campaign is dead serious about making a real play for Virginia.

The Obama campaign plans to open 20 new field offices in the state -- and at least five of them are in very red areas where Dems have traditionally feared to tread, Obama's Virginia director of communications, Kevin Griffis, confirms to me.

The Obama team is setting up shop in Winchester and Bristol, both of which are in areas that voted for Bush in 2004 by at least 25 points. Camp Obama is also adding an office in Harrisonburg, which went for Bush by 13 and is in the reliably-red Shenandoah Valley.

UPDATE: McCain camp still living in denial? Here's what they said about Obama's 20 new field offices in Virginia:

It is being done to create this image of momentum and enthusiasm that frankly is just not out there.

Let's hope they keep believing this. Idiots.