Barack Obama just started speaking live. He looks fired up! He just introduced John Edwards and the crowd went wild. They look SO amazing together!

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Gallup has some great news today. Not only is Barack 7 points ahead of Hillary but BOTH of them are performing better against Mccain than they have in months.

This is based on national interviews with Democratic voters from May 9-11. Importantly, Obama has led Clinton in each individual day of polling included in today's three-day rolling average, as well as the two days prior to that. Such stability was absent from the race for the past several weeks when Clinton and Obama often traded nightly leads in Gallup Poll Daily tracking and, as a result, neither candidate could achieve a significant leg up over the other in national preferences.

...

According to Gallup Poll Daily tracking from May 7-11, both Democratic candidates are now beating McCain among national registered voters in Gallup Poll Daily trial heats for the fall election.

Obama leads McCain by four points, 47% to 43%. Clinton leads McCain by five points, 49% to 44%. Both leads represent the candidates' highest margins over McCain, to date, since Gallup began tracking the general election ballots in early March.

Barack is doing something that I think is remarkably gutsy and smart.

He's gently switching into General Election mode.

Barack Obama will make a campaign stop in Missouri on Tuesday.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill has confirmed Obama, the front runner for the Democratic nomination, will visit Cape Girardeau to hold an economic town hall.

Visiting a state that has already held its primary could signal a switch from campaigning for the nomination against Hillary Rodham Clinton to campaigning for the presidency.

McCaskill told the Post-Dispatch that the town hall will focus on "the losses that working people have suffered" under a Republican president.

(Via Ben Smith)

Ted Kennedy joins Nancy Pelosi in nipping the "Hillary as VP" idea in the bud saying:

Obama should choose a running mate who "is in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people," Kennedy said. "If we had real leadership — as we do with Barack Obama — in the No. 2 spot as well, it'd be enormously helpful."

HA! First of all...that is a quite a shameless diss!

Secondly, I can assure you that this is precisely what Barack himself is thinking about. He has worked 7 days a week for 16 months. And he has seen Hillary pander on the gas tax, falsely accuse him of disenfranchising voters, recklesslesly assert that he "hasn't passed the Commander in chief threshold" while insisting he should be Vice president, threaten to obliterate Iran and generally behave without integrity.

I have no doubt that Barack dislikes her greatly. There is so much handwringing about him taking her as VP, but it would undermine his message of "Change" in such an extreme way that I can most certainly say, that he won't do it, he doesn't WANT to do it, and after all the hard work he's put into this campaigh, NO ONE is going to make him.

I have spent the morning scrolling lazily through various articles about the state of the race, something I haven't been able to do for months. As recently as Monday, plunking the term "Obama" into Google News brought back only headlines that made my heart sink. Lots of "Why can't he close the deal?" alongside COUNTLESS, ENDLESS articles about Rev. Wright. No, I couldn't deal with that. So I sheltered myself to Daily Kos and Countdown with KO and wept bitterly at the "MSM"

But for the last two days, most headlines read "It's over" and suddenly...reading the news is fun again! Not even Hillary's race baiting can get me down!

Anyway, I've mostly been reading my FAVORITE type of articles, which are those detailing what goes on "behind the scenes"  of this brilliant campaign, and how they have crafted the strategy that brought us that lovely tie in Indiana. A news roundup, below the fold.

I was reading Lynn Sweet's blog and I came across this infuriating incident from earlier today:

About 50 people were eating breakfast at the restaurant in Greenwood when Obama walked in at 7:40 a.m. He went from table to table, chatting briefly with patrons about the economy and gas prices before sitting down to breakfast.

One of his first encounters went poorly. He approached a man sitting
alone at a table and was waved away. The man told me afterward he had no
interest in meeting Obama. "I can't stand him,'' he said. "He's a Muslim. He's not even pro-American as far as I'm concerned.''

Obama seemed unfazed. He had better luck at a round table where several
men were eating. They said they regularly gather there to eat breakfast and talk politics.

MOTHERF$#%#$#!!!!! What kind of RUDE asshole would do something like that? Honestly, I can even vaguely understand believing the e-mails that arrive in your inbox. But there, with the man standing right in front of you CLEARLY not any of those things?? How can you be caught up in your own hate?

Folks...you are in for a real treat.

The National Review has been running a series of columns on Barack's book Dreams from my Father. I find Dreams to be such a stunning, wonderful book that I was pretty excited to see how the National Review was going to twist it into something ugly and have been following along ever since.

The first few columns were predictible enough...Jim Geraghty made many boilerplate assertions, that Obama's view of the United States (in his descriptions of how his grandparents grew up) was naive. Later, he writes that Obama was clearly "consumed by a quiet anger". He delves deeply into the incident where Barack's grandmother professes a fear of black men, valiantly defending her from any racial bias.

Somewhere along the way though, Geraghty started to soften up. By the time Barack was doing community organizing in Chicago, Geraghty was spending less time bullshitting and more time unabashedly praising Barack's writing, and quoting long passages of his accounts of inner city life, calling them "moving".

I was wandering around Youtube and I came across this video of Barack making lunch for Michelle and his girls on 60 Minutes. I had never seen it before but it is an overwhelmingly cute clip and I really hope that he will show more of this family man side of him. THIS is how he will win over Hillary's voters and how he will reassure the folks who think they "don't know him". I don't think there can be any question, once you see him interacting with his family, that he is a decent man with strong values.

I spotted this in the Open thread and it just really, really made me laugh. Michelle almost has a "Youtube Moment". Very funny and cute!

There is a new SUSA poll for Oregon. Barack has lost some ground.

It's now:

Obama 50% (-2)
Clinton 44% (+2)

So, his 10-point lead has been cut down to 6. Obviously, this poll was taken during this horrific week, in the middle of the Wrightmare, so I still think he will have a double-digit win there.
Looking at polls like this one is bound to be discouraging. But instead of despairing, I hope folks will resolve to put aside some time tomorrow to call folks in Indiana and North Carolina. I have promised myself that I will put aside at least an hour each day to do just that. Worrying isn't going to help Barack; but calling and cavassing will. Winning takes hard work!

This is a repost of a diary I wrote a few nights ago. It was late at night and only a few people saw it. I think, in these somewhat glum times, that what really matters is knowing that our candidate has such a strong character and values. This is a reminder of that.

So what truly matters in this campaign? Is it what's happening on MSNBC,  Wright's latest idiocy, Hillary's antics?

No, what truly matters is that we have the chance to have a once in a lifetime leader, which Barack Obama is.

I have been reminded of this yet again today. I came across a clip of Barack Obama talking in 1995, when he was 34, promoting his book "Dreams from my Father". It is just 13 minutes long but he shows himself to be the same thoughtful, self-aware, brilliant man that he has always been. He talks briefly about the incident with his grandmother where she confessed fear of black men, expresses the idea that we neither live in a colorblind society (like conservatives like to say) nor is race everything in our society (like Wright thinks) and he talks about what his family means to him. It's a FANTASTIC interview. And if you want to see the consistency of his character, the last thing he talks about is how to "get past the divisions that we face right now".

So what truly matters in this campaign? Is it what's happening on MSNBC,  Wright's latest idiocy, Hillary's antics?

No, what truly matters is that we have the chance to have a once in a lifetime leader, which Barack Obama is.

I have been reminded of this yet again tonight. I came across a clip of Barack Obama talking in 1995, when he was 34, promoting his book "Dreams from my Father". It is just 13 minutes long but he shows himself to be the same thoughtful, self-aware, brilliant man that he has always been. He talks briefly about the incident with his grandmother where she confessed fear of black men, expresses the idea that we neither live in a colorblind society (like conservatives like to say) nor is race everything in our society (like Wright thinks) and he talks about what his family means to him. It's a FANTASTIC interview. And if you want to see the consistency of his character, the last thing he talks about is how to "get past the divisions that we face right now".

Listening to this "blast from the past" has immediately calmed me down. I know that we won't let anything happen to this campaign because it's too important.

Not this time.

(Link to interview)

I know this is a minority opinion here today, but I am pretty darn upset with Jeremiah Wright. If you look at my comments from the past weeks, I have been Wright's most ardent defender. I will continue to defend his words, but I no longer defend his actions. He seems like a very bad friend.

I wrote a diary that was on the rec list, on Thursday, about how great he was on Bill Moyers. It had almost a thousand comments, by the end, and I read every single one. I felt (and still feel) that Wright had been treated badly by the press who completely distorted him. I put that interview in my signature and have encouraged everyone I know to watch it.  Many HAVE watched it and given me glowing feedback. He was a decent man and that much was clear.

Then he gave a speech at the NAACP. I thought it was great, as did other people. I was less than thrilled with some of the things he said (he said stuff about education that is pretty bogus) but my attitude was that he is an old guy, and has some pretty kooky ideas and he has the right to speak out for himself.

And today...Jeremiah Wright: The Sequel! Watching his appearance earlier I had one sinking thought: this dude isn't thinking about Barack for one second.

I sure hope that I am not the only one spending my Sunday making calls to Indiana. What better way to use up free minutes? We have just 10 days to go and if we win Indiana this damn primary may finally be over. Please folks...hop on those phones!!

Things are going really well, so far. I have been looking up the early voting location for people, although I am really shy about asking for their address, but no one has been weird about it. No one has asked me if Barack is a Muslim. This guy asked me a really indignant question about border security that I managed to answer really, really well (pats self on back). I said, in my best Barack Obama impression "Border security is a goal that all of us can agree on. Where we disagree with is the execution, and we have to bring a common sense approach in order to finally get things done." Anyway, I was quite proud of that one and I think that dude now leans Obama.

I just wanted to ask for other people's experiences in terms of what they usually say. I am curious because I actually wrote myself a little script that I like to follow and I wonder what other people do.

My "script" below the fold.

This is barely a diary but I stumbled across this clip from a press availability that Barack did yesterday. He gives some very charming responses to the question of whether he is "like a GQ model" and "elitist"  

Among other things, he describes family dinners at his house (post roasts and jello moulds) and reminisces about bowling.

The other diary discussion has slid off the recent diaries list, so I thought I would start up a diary to discuss Reverend Wright's WONDERFUL interview with Bill Moyers that I really hope everyone watches.

You can watch the whole thing right here: http://www.pbs.org/...

I saw from some of the comments that John King on CNN is already doing a hatchet job on what Wright said. But we have no control over that, as always. What we can do is watch the interview, make up our own minds about what we think, and hopefully disseminate it to our family and friends.

I wanted to post a quick diary in response to some of the rather panicked comments that I have seen in some of the diaries regarding Rev. Wright's interview with Bill Moyers. I know that Matthews and the folks on MSNBC are completely hyperventilating over this (I watched in abject horror for 30 minutes and then turned the TV off) but this is a really good example, much like Bittergate, of when the pundits truly don't get it.

The new USA Today/Gallup Poll has lots of interesting news.

Let's see...Obama increased his margin over Hillary from 7 to 10 points. Both Democrats beat Mccain. More people blame Hillary for the contest being negative.

And then...wait....what's this??

Efforts by Clinton and John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, to characterize Obama as elitist for his remarks at a San Francisco fundraiser seem to have failed. Seven of 10 say Obama "respects working-class Americans" rather than looks down on them — a slightly more positive reading than that for McCain or Clinton.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!