In many ways, you have to admire Obama’s latest victory. Wanting to avoid a bloody battle with Clinton supporters, he has managed to persuade the DNC that a roll call vote from the floor of the Convention in Denver is a bad idea. I have two responses: first, that halting the vote at this stage will annoy Clinton supporters, and second that quite a lot of good could actually come from a vote.

PoliticalBetting’s Mike Smithson deals with the first in full:

All this will do is fan the flames of discontent and provide great material for the legions of journalists in the city who loathe being “managed”. They want copy that’s not from the official spin machine and this action will provide it.

All it requires is for a couple of highly emotional TV interviews with disgruntled Clinton backers and that becomes the defining “image” of Denver.

The second objection is simply that the roll call vote could be turned to Obama’s advantage.  In this period of being parodied by his opponent as a messianic figure, Obama has been slowly slipping in the polls.  He has suffered few major setbacks, aside from the well-publicised debate over his pastor’s outspoken comments.  The roll call is genuinely seen as a challenge to Obama, and it is a challenge he could do with right now.  Overcoming the odds at a partially hostile Convention, and being seen to win his side over, would boost his march to the White House.  By ignoring discontent with Clinton and trying to sweep her under the carpet, he is effectively accepting that there is a real threat from his defeated rival, and he is afraid to combat it in public.

What would I do if I were Obama?  Hold the roll call vote, and gauge the level of opposition felt towards him.  Then I would go out onto the stage in front of live national television and accept the challenge needed to win the X% of trenchant Clinton supporters over, and vow to persuade them and the rest of America that I was ready to lead, to deliver a better America for all.  It would, at least, prove that he is not afraid to meet challenges.

Apparently.

I’ll believe it once I see it.

As far as I’m concerned the above makes it abundantly clear that the Republicans severely overplayed their shoddy hand. They picked too tough a target and one who was capable of far too fine a speech for their smears to stick.

Thus if they have done anyone damage with their distortions, after last night, it will have been themselves.

Still searching for her convention barn-stormer, but for the time this should suffice:

As Andrew Sullivan says, you find yourself wondering why she isn’t running for president.

Sharp words from the Anonymous Liberal:

The McCain campaign insists that he did not cheat and it outraged at the very suggestion of any impropriety. In a classic non-sequitur (and one that represents a microcosm of the entire campaign to this point), the McCain campaign issued a statement saying: “The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous.” Apparently POWs are, by definition, incapable of cheating on anything (something that would likely come as news to McCain’s first wife).

This interests me:

Look at the implicit message. Obama shares what these prominent Christians perceive as a respect for the family. McCain, by contrast, doesn’t; that shared look at 0:30 certainly implies that, presumably inspired by the affairs that, by his own admission, destroyed his first marriage.

I doubt ads like this will persuade Christian fundamentalists (defined here as those whose religion forms their primary voting concern) to vote for Obama in droves. Few would deny that he’s religious, or that he loves his family; but at the same time, the various vicious rumours about Obama’s church, and the Democrats’ general stance on issues like abortion, will probably put most of them off. Support from Clerics like Caldwell might act as a pull - but so support from Clinton, and virtually every other hate-figure the right constructs, will act as a push.

What they might do is persuade those fundies not to vote for McCain. That videos like this even exist demonstrates how disillusioned they are with McCain. Many pinned their hopes on Huckabee, and denounced McCain for moderation in the primaries; that flopped, and so have McCain’s attempts to win their confidence. And so a portion of the Republican base drifts away. Ads that continually remind that base their nominee isn’t “one of them” - and that his opponent is - will keep it that way.

Just so long as Obama doesn’t listen to them…

And I am interested in good relations between the United States and Russia. But in the twenty-first century, nations don’t invade other nations.”

John McCain, while not even joking.

Sometimes I am so glad that satire exists.  In this case, because the boundaries of satire demonstrate clearly that this video is far, far beyond them.

Via Mike Rouse.  It’s a couple of months old, too, but who’s complaining?

Some commentators have criticised Obama for not responding to McCain’s attack ads in kind. He simply doesn’t need to - voters do it for him. Like so:

Obama gets the attack ads; they hit home. And he can claim he’s still the insurgency candidate who’s above the old, negative politics. Rather what he’s looking for, no?

(Hat-tip: Jennie)