Jeremiah Wright = McCain's affair/affairs (my prediction is that neither side will bite on either of these)

other pastors = Hagee/the other crazy pastor

Rezko = Keating 5/other sleazy lobbyists

Ayers = McCain's ties to mobsters and G. Gordon Liddy

Argula/bitter = $500 loafers/not knowing how many homes you own

Race card = POW card

Anything else?

Well, if you go to openleft right now, Stoller has linked to an article about Wes not even attending the covnvention.  His office has allegedly confirmed that Wes will not be attending the convention at this point.  What may be ruffling some feathers is that Obama's people allegedly told Clark that there was no reason for him to come and that effectively he was not needed to speak on the day dedicated to "Securing America's Future."  As of right now, Wes has no role at the convention.

I hope this is a headfake (doubtful because his office allegedly confirmed this point) because even if he's not an actual VP candidate, it strikes me as absurd that a four-star general has not been given any role or has not even been asked to speak at the convention.  What it confirms for me is that the incident on Face the Nation really damaged Wes's chances at the veep and that it was not a coordinated effort.

I'm sure some folks will see this non-invitation as another slight to a guy closely tied with the Clintons but I'm willing to give Obama's people the benefit of the doubt.  Rangel shouldn't be speaking given that he's under some scrutiny pertaining to his properties; that may also be why Chris Dodd has not been given a speaking engagement.  Wes was planning to be out of the country anyway so the Obama folks may have thought "hey, you are not going to be the veep, so don't worry about coming."  I hope Obama's folks reconsider as Wes brought the house down in 2004.

According to Ambinder (who has staked his credibility with Sebelius and Pawlenty as the veep candidates), sources from Warner's inner circle are leaking that some in Obama's camp, not necessarily Obama himself, attempted to get Warner to flip from his earlier Shermanasque pronouncement about the VP spot.  Unfortunately for us Warner groupies (myself, Jerome, and lori), Warner decided against flipping.  Obama/Warner would have been an amazing team; that crap about VPs unable to swing states doesn't apply to a guy viewed as a savior in Virginia.  Kaine was able to ride his coattails from four years earlier to win the governorship.  The Obama/Warner team would have put McCain in a fetal position, forcing him to win Michigan to take the presidency as McCain is already underperforming dramatically in Virginia.

I too believe that Warner will be president one day, either in 2012 or 2016.  I'm not sure if he made the right call here; Warner may have thought that he didn't want to risk a 99% chance of winning a Senate Seat for a 65% chance of becoming the veep.  However, I believe Obama's chances would have improved dramatically with Warner at his side formally as veep.

I wouldn't be feeling too comfortable about my veep chances if I were Evan Bayh.  That Obama was allegedly trying to get Warner to flip suggests to me that he has some reservations about Bayh, supporting my theory that something in Obama's gut prevented from him pulling the trigger on Bayh last week, which I believe would have been the perfect time to do it as Bayh would have received the spotlight this week with Obama on vacation.  

This movement against Bayh as veep is pretty surprising; you cannot blame it on the Clintonite types either as the true-believers such as Stoller and Bowers over at Openleft are the ones pushing it.  I wonder if Obama is trying to get someone else such Al Gore to possibly flip from an earlier Shermanesque statement.

According to the LA times, Obama's "presidential campaign has confirmed that announcement of Obama's running mate choice is very near."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washingt on/2008/08/obama-vp.html

The campaign just sent an e-mail stating that Obama is "about to choose a running mate."  The intriguing thing about this story is that Obama would break the news via text message or e-mail.  

What "news" he would break via text message and e-mail is unclear.  Would he really send the VP's name via e-mail and text message or would he just send the date and location of when he is going to formally announce his veep candidate?  The article also speculated about the possibility of his naming his veep while he's on vacation and thus, forgoing the grand ceremony of introducing the veep by his side.  I have a hard time seeing Obama going through with this approach as it would severely diminish the veep whoever he or she may be.

I'm expecting anybody at this point, even Big Dog as it would raise some interesting questions as to the intent behind the 22nd Amendment (though I suspect Obama and Big Dog could claim that such a question is unjusticiable under the "political question" doctrine)

Just for the record, here is what Obama had to say about Edwards upon landing in Honolulu:

"The Edwards family indicated that they probably wouldn't be attending the convention. I understand that, look this is a difficult and painful time for them and I think they need to work through that process of healing. John Edwards was a great champion of working people through the course of this campaign. Many of his themes are ones that Democrats as a whole share, those will be amplified in the convention, and I wish them all well." http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/ story?id=5544983&page=1

Here is what HRC had to say about Edwards at a press conference after her event for Obama in Vegas.

"My thoughts and prayers are with the Edwards family today and that's all I've got to say." www.thepage.com

I'm predicting that the North Carolina GOP will attempt to tie Edwards to Obama if you remember the Wright video that it tried to run during the primaries.  I greatly admire Elizabeth Edwards and this revelation is pretty darn stinging.  I was never a fan of her husbands and I'm even less of a fan tonight.

http://thepage.time.com/more-on-lifetime -womens-poll/

So the topline number is an unsurprising 49-38 lead for Obama over McCain among women voters interviewed by the Lifetime network.  The lead stems mainly from Obama's overwhelming performance among Hispanic and African-American women.  Obama still has some work to do with white women as he is trailing McCain 47-38, which is a larger deficit than Kerry had against Bush among white women.

The more interesting number is how these women responded when asked about either candidate taking a women as his running mate.  Surprisingly, 20% of these voters would be less likely to vote for McCain if he ran with a woman while 15% would be more likely to vote for him.  With Obama, 29% of these voters (twice as many as the number for McCain) indicated that they were more likely to vote for him if he did run with a woman while 15% would be less likely to vote for him.

As for those women interviewed who voted for HRC, 47% indicated that they were more likely to support Obama if he ran with a woman while only 4% said they were less likely to vote for him.

Favorable/Unfavorable among these voters: Obama 53/28, McCain 37/31

Ten percent remain undecided (I suppose that means 3% will vote third-party or not vote at all); if Obama splits this ten percent, he will end up defeating McCain by a 54-43 margin among women, which may the biggest disparity among this demographic group in quite some time.  McCain would probably need to win 70% of the white male vote (which may be possible and what McCain may be aiming for judging by the way he performed in Sturgis) to defeat Obama if Obama beat McCain by double digits among women.

With a tip towards Jeralyn at talkleft.com, she's reporting that Bayh's D.C. baseball team has cancelled its game for tomorrow night.  As we all know by now, Bayh has an event scheduled with Obama on Wednesday.  What does this mean?

I think the key person to look for in this instance is not Bayh or Obama; it's HRC.  Where will she be on Wednesday?  You would think that if Obama is going to announce his veep and it is one of her former supporters, that she would be present at the announcement.  So far, her schedule indicates that she will either be campaigining with Obama or flying solo in Nevada on Friday.  Some bloggers, specifically puma, have asserted that Obama will be campaigning with her in Ohio this week but Obama is in Ohio tomorrow and she was in Philadelphia today.  Puma, what's your source for this Obama-HRC campaigning in Ohio claim?

Anyway, I think Bayh is an uninspiring choice and I'll leave it to William Cooper to make the case regarding Bayh's active cheerleading, rather than passive voting, for the Iraq War.  I just had to laugh when the guy claimed that he had so much in common with Obama two months after almost asserting that Obama had fewer testicles than HRC (so is he saying that he too has fewer testicles than HRC?).  

But whatever, if Bayh can deliver Indiana for Obama, then that's gravy.  I cannot say that I wouldn't have been as opportunistic.

So what did everybody think about Obama's energy speech today?  I thought it was pretty good for the most part and he got some pretty good and clean shots on McCain.  However, here are two critiques.

1) I'm not sure if Obama is going to like the headlines for the speech.  MSNBC and Halperin seem to be focusing on the fact that he "shifted" on the issue of tapping the nation's oil reserves.  It's probably not good anytime the word "shift" is in a headline.  It's probably good that his camp acknowledges that this position is a flip-flop and that the flip-flop stems from the fact that people are hurting.  Mitigating some of the potential damage on the flip-flop charge on the energy issue is that the other guy flip-flopped too.

2) I didn't feel Obama focused enough on his $1,000 energy rebate plan to be funded from the windfall profits tax on oil companies.  While I understand that his speech was focused primarily on how his potential presidency would achieve energy independence in the future, I think most Americans are less worried about the future than the immediate.  Obama only spent a couple of lines talking about this rebate plan, which according to Rasmussen is receiving overwhelming support (though the windfall profits tax idea is surprisingly not as popular).

I love the rebate plan; it's straight from the HRC playbook and presents us with an opportunity to use a wedge issue against McCain and the pubs.  McCain's spokeswoman indicated that he was against the rebate, so Obama has a real opportunity to drive home the narrative that McCain would rather protect oil companies from taxes than provide relief to struggling families.  Obama has to stick with this narrative and make his windfall profits rebate plan the primary focus of this week.

Any other thoughts?