Here is the map for August 19th. Notes are below (click map for bigger version):

Methodology

Here is the map for August 12th. Notes are below (click map for bigger version):

Methodology

Make no mistake that McCain is trying to promote the meme that Obama is not only popular (an irrelevant point on whether he is ready to be president), but that he is the leader of a cult of wild-eyed, screaming teenagers who faint and have the vapors at the very sight of him.  Bonus "he's luring your white daughters" footage included:

Spoilers below for those who are on a time delay.  If you don't want to know anything, then don't read.

Here is the map for August 5th. Notes are below (click map for bigger version):

Methodology

One of the amazing things about the new 'Celeb' ad from the McCain campaign is how many layers there are to the imagery of Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears and how that imagery relates to Obama, making the attack ad even worse than it would appear on the surface.

Here is the map for July 29th. Notes are below (click map for bigger version):

Methodology

Or at least that's one way to look at this new poll.  In it, Obama leads McCain 47% to 44% among registered voters, but trails 49% to 45% among likely voters.  There were 900 respondents in the registered voter poll while only 791 people were included in the likely voter poll.

Setting aside the fact that having nearly 88% of registered voters being likely voters is silly to begin with, let's dig into these numbers.

McCain has been ripping on Obama over the past couple of days over Obama canceling his trip to see wounded US troops in Germany.

Of course, nevermind that the Pentagon told Obama he couldn't visit with his campaign staff, and the fact that Obama called up the troops instead.

It appears that the latest Obama smear email has now been utterly debunked.

The letter that was being sent around was a legitimate letter written by a real soldier.  However, that soldier is now recanting his account and is requesting that anyone who is promoting what he wrote in his original email to take the letter down:

What could the rationale possibly be for this move:

The Bush administration plans to shift nearly $230 million in aid to Pakistan from counter-terrorism programs to upgrading that country’s aging F-16 attack planes, which Pakistan prizes more for their contribution to its military rivalry with India than for fighting insurgents along its Afghan border.

The press seems to have latched onto General Petraeus' seeming opposition to Obama's position on withdrawing troops as a rallying cry as to why Obama is wrong on Iraq (despite the increasingly Obvious endorsement of Obama's general plan by the Iraqi government itself).

However, there are several problems with relying so much on General Petraeus' opinion on the matter.

Just a note to the Kossacks: I've actually been doing this on my own blog since the first week of June, but since I've broken my posting embargo here, I've decided to start cross-posting these here.

Here is the map for July 22nd. Notes are below (click map for bigger version):

Methodology

Since Der Spiegel has released the transcript of their interview with Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki, I thought I would go through it and see what al-Maliki thought about various things.  Some of his comments were quite interesting.

I guess McCain decided to go the "we're staying whether the Iraqis like it or not" route:

"His domestic politics require him to be for us getting out," said a senior McCain campaign official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "The military says 'conditions based' and Maliki said 'conditions based' yesterday in the joint statement with Bush. Regardless, voters care about [the] military, not about Iraqi leaders."

Update 6/5: I've written a tad more about this at my own blog. If anyone is interested.

It greatly pains me to have to write this.  I joined this site in late 2004 because it seemed like an interesting site that shared many of my views.  Since then we've lost one election, and won another, gone through pie fights and numerous other crisis and over 140,000 new members and people here seemed to have always kept a level head.

10:00 PM: Montana polls close. Obama declared the winner.

This might be a late night as South Dakota doesn't close the last of it's polls until 9:00 PM Eastern, while Montana doesn't close until 10:00 PM Eastern.

What if the delegate to put Obama over the top - delegate #2,118 (taking the higher of 2,117 and 2,118) - was Hillary Clinton herself tomorrow night?

Now, I know that some people here of the mind that she'll never concede and all that jazz. We already know your position.  

Having said that, I think it would be an excellent way to start the unification process of the party to execute something like that.

I realize that it may not be the most likely of things to happen - the fact that we just don't know when it'll time for 2,118 is probably the biggest obstacle to this idea.