The Obama camp takes their time and never, ever takes their eye off their goal. And it can be frustrating at times. For example, for a couple of weeks I sat frustrated, wondering when Obama would slam McCain with the "nation of whiners" gaffe. And they sat back, took their time, and then pulled it out in front of 38 million viewers. They don't waste their advantages. They are disciplined enough to hold back and use them to their maximum effect.

The Sarah Palin pick is a joke on so many levels. However, it's an alarmingly scary joke. I look forward to the news media doing their job on this one.

I think one more way the Palin announcement has been a gift to the Obama campaign is that now they can quietly and efficiently go about doing their job and introducing their candidates to the battleground states( via bus tour) without the hyper scrutiny of the mainstream media. Somewhere in the heartland Obama and Biden must be heaving sighs of relief and respite.

And I can't help but feel that biased reporting does influence elections. Not sure that was necessarily the case with Obama/Hillary, but MSNBC has gone off the rails. Their bias is so obvious it's approaching FOX. They're just not as vitriolic, hateful, or extreme as FOX. Seriously, though I do think that when the talking heads incessantly ask questions like, is (Insert Democrat)patriotic enough? that a discourse is framed in the minds of certain aspects of the electorate. Whether or not it mattered previously it is instantly given credence by well dressed professionals allowing it oxygen in the name of balance. John Stewart had a great joke about Fox where he pointed out all the crazy accusations they would make and just add a question mark: Obama, a Muslim? Your mother, a whore? We report you decide.

OTOH, I have yet to see a strategy for gathering 271 electoral votes coming out of the McCain campaign. Its Dole '96 all over again, right down to George F. Will recommending the clarion call "where's the ridicule?" subbing for "where's the outrage?" Old White Men At Sea...

What we need is a recall system to replace chief executives as needed rather than on a timetable.

Here is the full quote

Palin: "[A]s for that V.P. talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the V.P. does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that V.P .slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question."

It appears to me that she is questioning what her role would be in an administration and she doesn't want it to be the John Adams model of sitting around waiting for the President to die. Different VP's have vastly different roles, Gore's was reinventing government, Cheney started with the Energy Task Force. When asked about a hypothetical VP job, the person doesn't know what the job is about until the boss tells them.

All those geniuses like Chris Bowers who think this answer shows Palin's stupidity, please enlighten us all on what the VP does "every day". It is impossible to explain that because not only is "every day" different, every VP has different tasks.

I think her answer shows she really didn't think she would be chosen because its audience is obviously her fellow Alaskans. It seemed like it was her way of saying I am putting Alaskans first, more to improve her standing in her home state.

That said, WTF! Wasn't Jesse The Body Ventura available?

Ironically, for someone noted for his rhetorical skill, Obama's campaign, and Obama himself, have remained ruthlessly focused on the bottom line: how much closer does it get us toward victory? How much will it cost. After the Iowa primaries, he quipped in debate "I'd gladly measure my return on investment (ROI) against Governor Romney's." The quip was a lot more revealing than it may appear.

Perhaps Obama's rhetoric and his 'loose' and authentic manner on the stump is not the core of his game, but rather a benefit of his being confident that, in the end, speechifying doesn't matter as much as a good organization, tight budgeting, and a well-thought out basic strategy.

If so, it is one of the reasons Republicans have much to fear. It's terribly easy to underestimate "Obambi," but (as they used to say of Gorbachev) he has sharp teeth.

It seemed to me that Palin didn't really think she was on the short list, mainly because McCain hadn't even told her what his vision for the vice presidency was.

Presidential candidates have their own vision of how the Vice President will work. VPs are only required to break ties in the Senate, and that happens so rarely that really all they have to do is call the White House every morning to see if they've been promoted.

Cheney is a perfect example of how a Vice President can go from bench-warmer to active participant in policy making. Of course Cheney is a piece of shit, but that doesn't change the fact that he (with Bush's blessing) has absolutely reshaped what the office means.

I think it's worth noting that Obama has clearly defined to the public what role he expects Biden to play. We are only left to assume that Palin is a product of tokenism, since McCain hasn't really told us what she's going to be doing if he gets elected. And I find it hard for him to come up with something as well. She could lead the charge on more oil drilling domestically, and then... that's about it.

The Obama campaign received one night of general praise (except for FOX, that AP writer, and a few others who shall remain nameless) and the speech will probably stand AS IS because the news cycle didn't have time to rip it to shreds, to over examine it and generally reshape it.

McCain truly did Obama a great service in that regard.

So unless Team Obama focuses on winning SOME news cycles, it's going to be a brutal election day.

That is an old-fashioned, simplistic view of what a VP does. That hardly describes what even Nixon did while VP 50 years ago, much less explain the greatly expanded role the VP has in recent politics. According to lefty talking points, GHW Bush traveled to Paris to stop the Iranians from releasing the hostages until after the election. These same lefties often state that Cheney is running the government because W is too stupid to even eat a pretzel.

Do you really think Al Gore's job was simply to break a few ties over 8 years and to make sure Air Force 2 was gassed up in case the President of Norway bit the dust?