Sorry that all of my posts have been so political recently. It's the nature of the beast at the moment. I promise more personal and non-political posts in the near future.

But in the meantime, I wanted to go ahead and give my take on the current state of the race now that the conventions are over and the veep candidates have been picked.

Basically, this sucker is tied. Most of the credible polls show that this thing is either a statistical dead heat or that Obama or McCain are slightly ahead (within the MOE and thusly a tie).

It's hard to gauge what a tie really means at this point. I've always believed that a tie favors Obama, but it only favors him if the necessary people come out and actually vote. Since college-aged students, African Americans, and Latinos tend to not be polled as heavily, I think that it's a good sign for Obama.

But those above groups need to come out in records numbers. I don't think you have to worry about African Americans, but I'm not sure how long I can hold my breath over the youth vote. If the youth actually vote, they'll turn the election in Obama's favor. If not, it's 2004 all over again.

I just do not get the Sarah Palin thing. I understand her energizing the base, since she's to the right of both McCain and George W Bush (if that's possible), but I don't understand how independents are moving towards McCain and Palin.

The Palin pick is wrong on about 100 different levels and to go through them is its own post in and of itself, but I do think that her lies (and yes they are lies) about everything from the "bridge to nowhere" to her plentiful earmark requests are going to come back and get her. What I'm curious about is to see how she responds to the queries about her misstatements and lies. If she continues her policy of repeating those lies or if she continues to be reluctant about talking to the media, the MSM and the blogosphere will form narratives about her.

If I were her people, I'd tell her to just admit that you "misspoke" about the "bridge to nowhere" and about her turning down earmarks. But then what is she left with? This is a whole post in and of itself...

But again, I'm not holding my breath about when her misstatements and lies are going to catch up to her. As of now, the Obama/Biden campaign has taken a soft approach to Palin. The heated rhetoric has picked up in the past couple of days, but I think that they ignore Palin at their own peril. I'm glad to see that they're finally starting to come around to going after her record, or lack thereof, but one thing the O campaign needs to do is stop replying to her record through press releases. They need commercials and attacks in speeches.

I'm feeling somewhat confident about the debates. I watched Biden on "Meet the Press" and feel somewhat amazed at how much that dude actually knows about foreign affairs. Palin's supposedly holed up somewhere learning (cramming?) foreign policy from Bush's and Lieberman's people, so I expect her to do alright on this front. I made it through 4 years of college on this method, so I'm confident she'll have enough "facts" and pre-made arguments to boost her along through the debate. She also benefits from lowered expectations.

But where I think she could come under attack are her ultra right wing positions. I think the more people here about her teach creationism in schools, all abortions illegal including rape or incest, her continuation of Bush's war in Iraq, continuation of Bush's economic policies, her ideas on stem-cells, and her "drill, drill, drill" mentality, the more independents will turn away.

And I think Biden will be able to get her on her misstatements as well. I used to be worried about Biden coming off as condescending, but I think he's going to be alright. You don't gain as much seniority as Biden has without knowing how to play the game.

Obama on the other hand, I fluctuate back and forth on how he's going to do. Obama did really well during the Clinton-Obama debates, but part of that was just in him "winning by not losing." Meaning, if he tied Clinton (the front-runner) than it's actually a win for him. He doesn't (and shouldn't) have that luxury anymore.

He needs to make the case against McCain, sure, but he needs to do so by giving the public his vision as succinctly and clearly as possible. If Obama has one problem with his debating skills, and this has become evident in his recent interviews with both Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly it's his using 15 words to say something that only needs 5. I think the more he does that, the more he opens himself up to a Reaganesque "there he goes again" remark from McCain.

And I think that Obama's going to have a hard time with his "surge" response. He seems to fumble around a bit when asked by people why he can't just admit that the surge worked better than he had anticipated. I agree with the answer Obama gives, but it's an intellectual answer and intellectual answers sometimes don't go over well in the debate format (sad, but true).

So if I had one piece of advice for Obama, it's to tighten it up a bit. Oh, and although it's going to be hard to lay off, I'd say keep the "Bush screwed this all up" stuff to a minimum. Anyone but Bush/McCain will only get you so far. You have to make the case for yourself and not always talk about how badly Bush screwed it up. So far, he's done a good job of this, but it's just something to keep in mind.

And luckily for us, McCain is not a great debater. But even if he was a great debater, which he's not, McCain and Palin lose on all the issues. Their economic policies, their foreign policies, their energy policies, their education stances, their stances on abortion, gay rights, stem cell research, and immigration are all policies in which they find themselves on the wrong side of the majority of Americans.

How the debates sways things is anyone's guess.

I'm also a little worried about the level of energy that I'm witnessing around here. It's early September, sure, but I've noticed a considerable drop in enthusiasm around these parts. It better pick up...

That's all I got for now. Later.

- Matthew