I'm on the edge but the speech didn't do it for me tonight.  

I'm on the edge because I'm a Democrat.  I'm waiting for something to sell me on the Obama/Biden ticket.  

I'll admit I like having Biden on the ticket but I'm not sure, exactly, how much an Obama administration would allow him to do.  

He says nobody is introducing Obama (like Kerry's war buddies last time) except his family in a personal way. Because nobody knows him.

Today, it's Martinez 48%, Diaz-Balart 46%. The outcome is within the survey's 4.0 percentage point margin of sampling error and is not statistically significant. The contest is and should be described at this hour as effectively even.

[. . .]

Cubans living in the 21st District back Diaz-Balart by 42 points. Non-Cuban Hispanics back Martinez by 19 points. White voters, who are in the minority in this district, break 5:4 for Martinez. Half of voters in Florida 21 see the economy as the most important issue facing Congress. Voters focused on the economy break 4:3 Democrat. Diaz-Balart holds 84% of Republicans. Martinez holds 81% of Democrats. Independents break 3:2 for the Democrat. Moderates break 3:2 for the Democrat.

Moreover, Obama and McCain are tied in the district 48/48. It went for Bush over Gore by almost 16 and Bush over Kerry by 14.

Hell, the pundits on CNN aren't drinking Kool-aid, they're shooting it straight into their genitalia.  I guess it's nice for once our side gets that kinda treatment, but Good God, it is ugly and venal and won't convince a soul.  And Wolf mentioning Barack's race every two seconds is not only damaging, but stupid.  If this election comes down to Obama's race, then we will have the shelf life of a joint at a Phish concert electorally.  At least I don't have to feel bad about not having MSNBO, as CNN is cornering the market on Obama love.

Again, solid speech, even quite good, but it wasn't notably better than Kerry's or Gore's or Clinton or Dukakis', so I wish CNN would just STFU because they are not helping us with this drivel they're spewing.

I do feel better about Sen. Obama tonight, and now will probably vote for him (although in WA that shouldn't matter, Barack should win here by 6, that's what Kerry did) but my differences with the DNC and especially the vermin like Dean and Brazille are irreconcilable.  They had better hope their man wins, because they will be banished to the badlands if they choke on what should have been an easy victory.  And I'll be there with the Nelson "Ha Ha" when they beg for water.  :)

Maybe that's okay. As has been pointed out, the country is not a corporation, and we're not looking for a CEO. On the other hand, managing the country and the government is much harder than being a CEO, and requires a superset of the skills a CEO needs.

In the past few months, my biggest concern has been with the surburbanite Obamacans I met in my own state, the new Democrats in my party precinct, the progressive poseurs (former Republicans and Iraq War advocates) on our A-list blogs, and the party hacks at work in the DNC. They did not reflect Democratic values  - not with principle and certainly not consistently (the rules became teh Roolz). Now, though, I think that the folks Obama brought into the party for the first time may have learned what it is to be a Democrat. Granted, Obama did nothing during the primaries that led me to think he had the sensibility to recognize the perniciousness of sexism in our party.  At the least, from his speech, I anticipate that Obama will attempt to remake these new voters into Democrats, and not remake Democrats in the image of Obamacans.

However, there is much work to be done with the misogynists and faux progressives who hold positions of power over the discourse of our party, our media, and - especially - our A-list blogs. Hopefully, talkleft won't go in he direction that it signaled this morning. The bloggers formerly known as A-listers do not have the moral and intellectual honesty to recognize their complicity in the CDS-sexism of the primary season. They are architects of a new left authoritarianism - a new consensus politics of conformity - as crude as that sounds.

For me, this is how the Democratic convention connects with the site's drama this morning. The levers of change in the party are with the dissenters and the resisters (PUMAs, etc.). The leverage is over Obama's moral dignity and Democratic sensibility, not the party leaders or the blogosphere. If talkleft really wants to invigorate our Democratic discourse with original or thoughtful dissent, then talkleft needs to reference more often the emerging voices like Anglachel and others who articulate insightful criticism about the Democratic party that no longer exists in the former A-list sites like TPM, dailykos, Eschaton, and (sadly) Hullabaloo.

I wish I didn't know what I know about how he got the nomination.

When I think of the difference between Senator Obama's words and his actions:

• his 'historic' speech regarding his opposition to the Iraq war versus his action in continuing to fund it.

• his initial denials of knowledge regarding the nature of his (now former) pastor's diatribes in the church which he attended for two decades and to which he donated thousands of dollars. No serious thinker could believe he had never heard, or heard about, those sermons.

• his statement that he would accept public campaign financing versus his rejection of it.

• his statement that he would oppose, even filibuster, the FISA bill versus his vote for it.