I'll assume you've also read the Reuters article.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0138628820080801
It's entitled: Economic models predict clear Obama win in November

While the latest Rasmussen tracking poll shows Obama with a one point lead, (47% to 46%) there is another troubling finding for Democrats. For the first time in several months, the number of Americans who consider themselves Democrats has declined, while the number of Americans who consider themselves Republicans remains steady.

While there are many possible explanations, the best guess is that there is an increasing number of Democrats who say they don't like Obama. In fact, the number of Republicans who say they are satisfied with McCain as the nominee now exceeds the number of Democrats who say they are satisfied with Obama. I have seen it reported (but don't know if it's true) that since Obama secured the nomination, there has been a steady stream of Democrats reregistering as Independents. Does this mean anything? Who knows? The dreaded PUMA movement (that Steve doesn't like us to mention) is actively encuraging Democrats to reregister.

At this point, one things seems sure, Obama's trip to Europe was not well received by the electorate. Overall, his polls have weakened since the trip not strengthened.

For those who may be interested, here is the pertinent quote from the Rasmussen Website.

"Saturday, August 02, 2008

During July, the number of Americans who consider themselves to be Democrats fell two percentage points to 39.2%. That’s the first time since January that the number of Democrats has fallen below 41% (see history from January 2004 to present).

While the number of Democrats declined, there was virtually no change in the number of Republicans. In July, 31.6% said they were Republicans, the fourth straight month that number has been at or below 31.4% and 31.6%.

The Democrats now have a 7.6 percentage point advantage over the Republicans, down from a 9.5 percentage point advantage in June and 10.1 percentage points in May."

The Democrats are poised to nominate a candidate that is unsatisfactory to a significant minority of the party.

Of course, Obama can win anyway; he probably will.

But I wouldn't count my chickens just yet. The Republican attack machine that Steve Clemons alluded to in another post is just getting geared up.

Hold on to your hats!

(tech: Captcha is still a pain at less than 50% success rate)

WigWag: "While there are many possible explanations, the best guess is that there is an increasing number of Democrats who say they don't like Obama."

Well, one other possible explanation is that people who voted Dem last time, sickened to death of the Iraq war, the rape of the middle class and all social programs (the ones for, y'know, American-type humans beings),unremitting corporate socialism, privatization (looting) of the military, degradation if just about everyone who is not in the top 1% of dollar holders, and environmental debauchery brought by the Repubs, expected a change in DC and are incensed that their vote seems to have meant nothing. Representative democracy simply doesn't work if you don't feel represented. The Dems have seemed --no other words for it--fantastically inept and wimpy. "Off the table" Pelosi hasn't helped, and that with a president who has openly broken more laws that any ten other presidents. It's not like she doesn't have material to work with. I can't count the number of times I heard someone say about the Dems "well I was going to send them some money, but then they (fill in the blank)". The list of instances where Congressional and Senate Democrats have not only shown they don't have any courage, but have also managed to shoot themselves in the foot just when there seemed to be hope is endless. It's a cool day in hell when T Boone Pickens can make a play for alternate energy, a progressive keystone issue, and actually get some traction. I have stopped responding to Democratic entreaties for money. What's the point? You want my money? Then get off your butts and do something and show me some results. Damned near anything at this point would help. Do you hear me now DNCC??? My comments to you in other forms don't seem to be getting through to you.

People might be shifting away from Obama, but I think the probability is far greater that they are pissed at the Democrats we last elected and their dismal-say it again veeerrry slowly, like drool off a doughnut--dismal-- track record.

Democrats are losing ground they had gained this election season.

If you have not figured it out by now, the electoral map has concentrated bands of voters for Democrats.

Jerrymandering does help dilute some of that numbers gain as well.

As for Intrade and a betting line. The house always sides with who they expect to win. Place your bet on Obama as a "favorite" to win.

Bears repeating:

"It's a cool day in hell when T Boone Pickens can make a play for alternate energy, a progressive keystone issue, and actually get some traction."

Many experts across the country have had the tools to put the country on a viable economic path and reduce dependence on oil, foreign or domestic. Amory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute is a primary example.

Yet they've been willfully ignored by policy makers for decades. You can cite Jimmy Carter as easily as Al Gore. Many do what they can---Jeff Bingaman---but the longstanding sense that ridicule and avoidance is an acceptable response to the American public, even by 'smart' guys like Tom Friedman on WTO concerns, just won't wash. Friedman's green conversion wins no points; it's a couple decades late and a few trillion dollars short.

I welcome the recent converts simply because we need everybody we can get. But it would be a grievous mistake to allow them to drive the agenda or channel American (public) resources.

The rest of the country is much further along than most New Yorkers or DC denizens are aware. I cited Amory Lovins above, but Cal DeWitt taught thousands of undergrads at the UW that global warming was proven as an empirical fact by 1994. We didn't have 15 years then to squander; we assuredly do not have 15 weeks now to hold T. Boone Pickens hand---or Friedman's---because they need their egos salved and a reserved seat at the cutting edge.

We need to get something done, and I'd suggest any betting man---Gallup or Intrade---will put all their chips on the guy most likely to accomplish some of the major tasks facing us. Those salivating for a place at the team aren't going to be the ones bringing home the solutions the nation needs to put into practice ASAP.

Apparently Obama has now lost his lead in the Rasmussen Tracking Poll. It is the first time that this poll has shown McCain with the lead. Tracking polls are certainly not definitive, but they do suggest trends. Obama's numbers have been declining steadily since his trip to Europe and the Middle East. Why his trip would cause his numbers to decline so steadily is a mystery given the glowing coverage that the media gave the trip. Rasmussen and USA Today polls now both show Obama behind McCain and slipping.

This, from the Rasmussen Website (www.rasmussenreports.com)

August 4, 2008

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows the race for the White House is tied with Barack Obama and John McCain each attracting 44% of the vote. However, when "leaners" are included, it’s McCain 47% and Obama 46%. This is the first time McCain has enjoyed even a statistically insignificant advantage of any sort since Obama clinched the Democratic nomination on June 3 (see recent daily results). Tracking Polls are released at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time each day.

A week ago today, Obama had a three-percentage point lead and the candidates were even among unaffiliated voters. Today, McCain leads 52% to 37% among unaffiliateds.

McCain is currently viewed favorably by 55% of the nation’s voters, Obama by 51%. That is the lowest rating for Obama since he wrapped up the nomination. Obama is viewed favorably by 83% of Democrats, 22% of Republicans, and 47% of unaffiliated voters. For McCain, the numbers are 87% favorable among Republicans, 26% among Democrats, and 61% among unaffiliated voters.

I'm not a statistician, but this post is based on Nate Silver's work, and he is a statistician. So WigWag, this link's for you.....

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/4/62921/10167/291/562104

So questions, I checked out the link at your suggestion. I did so with some trepidation because I make it a policy not to go the Daily Kos. In my view the site has been a hot bed of sexism and stupidity throughout the campaign.

I partially agree with the NCrissieB and partially disagree.

I think that it is ridiculous to say that McCain is winning the "pundit race." The media has been in the bag for Obama right along, and anyone with open eyes and open ears knows that. It's especially true at MSNBC and somewhat true at CNN. Fox, as expected, is with McCain. On the newspaper front, the vast majority of columnists at both the NY Times and Washington Post are ardent Obama supporters and their columns make that abundantly clear.

As for the polls, I agree with NCrissieB that fivethirtyeight.com is the best and most accurate website out there on the election. And I agree that Obama is still probably ahead in the popular vote and definitely ahead in the contest for electoral votes (which is what counts).

And it is also true that if the election were held today, Obama would win. But the election is not being held today.

While the current tracking polls (which now show McCain creeping into the lead)are a poor indicator of what will happen in November, they are a good surrogate marker for what the public is thinking now. And as of this moment, the polls show that the public is increasingly less impressed by what they see from Obama.

While the polls don't tell us that McCain is going to win, I think it is fair to say that they tell us that politically speaking, Obama's trip to Europe and the Middle East was a flop. I think that they also tell us that Obama's recent attempt to paint McCain as a racist (which partially worked against Hillary Clinton)has backfired. I think his declining polls also show that Obama's attempt to hide from the issue of gasoline prices (as he did when he dismissed Clinton' idea for a gas tax holiday)may have worked when he was only seeking votes in Democratic primaries and caucuses, but doesn't work when he's seeking votes from the entire electorate. That's why Obama is now saying he will support some off shore drilling. When it comes to off-shore drilling, Obama was against it before he was for it.

And remember, the Republican attack machine hasn't even appeared yet. Shortly after the conventions, the RNC will be running wall to wall ads with Reverend Wright, Father Pfleger, Rashid Khalidi and Tony Rezko.

And McCain will be doing everything he can to appeal to all those "bitter" Clinton voters.

So what I glean from the polls:(1)so far, the public doesn't particularly like what it sees from Obama; (2)the public doesn't like McCain much either; (3)the public is truly sick of republicans; (4)Obama will probably win; (5)but don't bet the house on it!

Don't forget the dark horse of racism, Wig.

Whether the public believes--or is willing to believe--or is
willing to admit it to pollsters--that McCain is playing the race
card is immaterial to the underlying reality.

Arguably, Obama's race was a positive in the primary; but it
became a negative once the campaign moved to the deep end of
the pool. Unfortunately, McCain can count on the southern
strategy to work for him, even if he doesn't actively employ it.

And yet, he is employing it. David Gergen, a son of the south
and no raging liberal by any means, was clear on this point:
Comparing Obama to Moses and "the One" is equivalent to
saying: uppity negro. No one at George Stephanopolous' table
was able to disagree.

When Obama stated the obvious--that he doesn't look like
previous presidents--McCain claimed OBAMA was playing the
race card, when, in fact, it was McCain who was trying to make
the double bank shot and inoculate himself against attack.

Hopefully, when the RNC attack machine cranks up, the Dems
will crank up Hagee, that other preacher, McCain's late support
for the surge which may not even be working, his flip flops on
just about everything, his early and robust support for the mess
we find ourselves in aboard, his apparent dementia, and the
Keating Five. Oh, and the Big H.

Biden could be play a good junkyard dog--though it would be a
shame to lose a Democratic senator.

Sweetness, I disagree that McCain is employing the "Southern Strategy" and appealing to racism, at least so far.

You say, "And yet, he is employing it. David Gergen, a son of the south and no raging liberal by any means, was clear on this point: Comparing Obama to Moses and "the One" is equivalent to
saying: uppity negro. No one at George Stephanopolous' table was able to disagree."

The discussion that you are referring to was about the ad that McCain ran comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. I didn't think the ad was racist and according to the Rasmussen poll neither did 70 percent of the people who saw it. In fact, according to Rasmussen, less than 25 percent of people who saw the ad thought it had a racial element.

I think Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler had it exactly right. This is what he said:

"Earth to liberals: In that Spears/Hilton ad, McCain is calling Obama a lightweight. It’s what Walter Mondale did to Gary Hart when he mockingly asked, “Where’s the beef?” It’s what experienced candidates do when confronting inexperienced challengers. Unfortunately, we reacted in lightweight ways—by yelling race and seeking relief—and the numbers began to move. It’s how our side has lost elections at various times in the past.

Remember, once more, before you get mad: This only matters if you care who wins. If you want this to be a graduate seminar, go ahead—knock yourselves out."

In my opinion, Obama figured he would try to race bait McCain the same way he race baited Clinton. You remember. Clinton made an innocent and perfectly correct and appropriate comment that it took a President, Lyndon Johnson, to push for the enactment of civil rights legislation and Senator Obama, shrewdly accused her of defaming the memory of Martin Luther King. His comment was disgusting, but his inference that Clinton was a racist or at least racially insensitive, helped turn the tide and win him the nomination.

Having success with it the first time, Obama figured he would give it another try. He took a campaign commercial that was not plausibly related to race and tried to pretend that it was. Only this time, it didn't work. Instead of helping him, his poll numbers began to drop. Actually (according to Rasmussen)53 percent of the public concluded that Obama's response to the ad was racist.

Here's what Obama forgot. During the Democratic nominating process Obama's strategy was to appeal to black voters by appealing to racial solidarity (there's nothing wrong with this, Hillary Clinton did the same thing with gender solidarity)and to win the votes of the university set (students and faculty)and think tank types.

Now, most members of this "Starbucks set" never actually meet with or even talk to black people. They don't have black friends and their worlds are as segregated as the segregated south ever was. Obama was correct to assume they would be sympathetic to the type of race baiting that he employed against Clinton. After all, the phrase "they talk the talk but don't walk the walk" perfectly describes this crowd.

If you think I'm making this up, go to the web site of the New America Foundation and click on the staff link. They have pictures of their staff; they are almost all white. You can do the same thing at the Brookings Institution, the Center for American Progress or any other liberal political think tank. I'm not picking on any particular organization. I'm just pointing out that being "liberal" in word is not the same thing as being inclusive in deed.

When it comes to winning the general election instead of Democratic caucuses, appealing to the guilt that this group feels (and should feel)doesn't get you that far. After all, Obama already has the "fauxgressive" vote locked up. To win the general election, somehow he needs to appeal to all those voters that he described as "bitter" especially in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. That's why Obama has been running so fast to the center and that's why his race baiting worked the first time around but failed miserably this time.

And one more thing. Before Senator Obama criticizes videos or commercials as racist just because they have white girls in them, he should remember the political milage he got out of the Obamagirl video. And before he criticizes an ad comparing him to Paris Hilton he should remember what he said on February 24, 2008 to the Washington Post,

"Andy Warhol said we all get our 15 minutes of fame,” says Barack Obama. “I’ve already had an hour and a half. I mean, I’m so overexposed, I’m making Paris Hilton look like a recluse.”

Wigwag,

Thanks for your response. The ad I'm talking about, and Gergen
was talking about, was the one where McCain likens Obama to
Moses and "the one." Perhaps this is the same as the Britney ad,
I'm not sure. But it isn't the Britney imagery; it's the Moshe
Rabbeineu imagery. And then of course, there was the blather
all over the networks about how Obama was maybe getting "too
cocky." Cocky like JFK was cocky, but hopefully with more
control over his cock than JFK seems to have had. We're only to
allow our negroes to be uppity just so fur and no further!

I agree and agreed with you about the LBJ remark. However, I
have a feeling it was others in the black community who took
umbrage, not Obama--at least not directly. So one has to
decide if one is gong to count only the things the candidate or
his close campaign adviser says; or is the campaign going to
assume responsibility for things that, say, Bill Clinton says, too,
just to harken back to the primaries for a second.

And that's the problem with all of this: Obama and McCain can
make passive use of mass sentiments for their own use. That's
mostly what I mean when I say that McCain is making use of the
southern strategy. However, Gergen makes clear that it's a bit
more active than passive in the ad under discussion.

There are a number of cases that are somewhat ambiguous. Did
Hillary mean to suggest that Obama might be Muslim? Seen one
way, yes, as far as I know. Seen another way, it was clear to me
that Kroft was pressing Hillary on the question so she finally
came up with the answer that was literally true: Not as far as
she knew. She clearly had no way of knowing absolutely,
because she had no first-hand knowledge of his religion.

Same thing sort of goes for "hard working white folk." Here we
have not only gender identification, but racial identification. Or,
to twist things a bit, calling a spade a spade. Or an offay an
offay. Why couldn't she have just said "hard working
Americans"? Because she had found a racial hot button and, at
that point, she had to try something to win. But it was a pretty
clear racial ploy.

I would point you to Eugene Robinson--a rooter for the home
team, but still pretty fair--in today's Wapo OpEd. Just below it
is EJ Dionne who offers some good perspective. Both easily
gotten online.

In any event, I have no problem with the Paris and Britney ad,
though Paris's Mom does. I think it caught Obama off guard
mostly because it was such a silly ad and such an obvious sign of
desperation.

I THINK the ObamaGirl was an independent effort. Regardless, I
don't think the Paris/Britney/white girl theme is a big deal.

I tend to agree with your Starbucks analysis, but, to be honst, I
don't see how it's germane to this discussion or Obama's
strategy. I think Obama knows he needs to close the gap with
"hard working white Americans" and knows he's made some
bitter mistakes. To which I say, so?

Cass Sunstein reads a lot of psych experiments and writes endlessly about them. The one in my brain right now is from _Nudge_ -- his most recent effort (this one co-written). Anyway, if you get a group of people to write down the last three digits of their Social Security number and then guess at an unfamiliar date in history, those with a higher So Sec number guess a higher date, and those with a lower number guess a lower date. So the field against which you see the world really helps determine how the world looks. Putting blondes in the anti-Obama ads sets up a particular field that matters for SOME people, and is probably really effective in some corners of the country. Remember, McCain has professional ad people at this point and advertising has shaped our psyches for decades. Ads create problems we never knew we had so that we will buy solutions. Ads convince us of all sorts of things even as we deny their effects. Britney and Paris are there for good reason. So I guess, Sweetness, I'd say it is a big deal. And then I'd get really sad at that fact.

Well, questions, you make a good point.

Seems to me I remember Harold Ford, another good-looking black
man, being taken down by a ploy that partakes of the same sort of
ruse. A young, attractive white woman says, "Call me, Harold!"

In this case, I don't think the INTENTION--or the obvious
intention--is the same, but you're right, it does tap into the same
field of associations. And, as you say, we're all walking around with
different "fields," and that may say it all.

Skillful communicators create multi-vector communications that
strike many chords without having to do so directly. Level One is
Obama is frivolous; but if he's sandwiched between two sexually
promiscuous blond women...the ad is doing double duty.

Your last paragraph is the big one! Multiple, and even contradictory, messages working on different people in different ways. These guys know what they are doing. I'm hoping that somehow Obama's people have their own book of tricks. Can they show the tired, occasionally confused, often self-contradictory, sort of strange McCain that I see? The one who refers to the "Hanoi Hilton" with punishing aggression while denying that he ever mentions it? Can they show that the guy has retrograde and ill-thought out policy positions? Are those traits comparable to the race/youth/French/foreign/liberal/cowardly/ too popular and so on memes that McCain tosses out? Which set triggers more anxiety? Which set might make people change votes in the booth? And then I start worrying. And with Sunstein's use of example after example of "nudges" that alter people's behavior, I worry even more.

Start nudging, Senator Obama!

Sweetness, at your suggestion I read the columns in the Washington Post by Eugene Robinson and E.J. Dionne. I won’t even bother responding to the Robinson op ed. Robinson rarely has anything worthwhile to say and he is so in the tank for Obama that he should be drawing his salary from the Obama campaign instead of the Washington Post. It’s the op ed by Dionne that I find particularly contemptible.

Before I get to Dionne, I want to call your attention to an op ed by Maureen Dowd that appeared in the New York Times this past Sunday. Dowd is severely mentally deranged. Her column makes all kinds of bizarre claims like working class women won’t vote for Obama because he is too thin. In her column, pretending that this comment is emblematic, she quotes a Texas house wife who supposedly said “He needs to put some meat on his bones,” and another Clinton voter who left a message on a Yahoo message board that said “I won’t vote for any beanpole guy.” Yep, those comments culled from millions must be the most representative of us Clinton supporters!

The piece de resistance from the Dowd column was what may have been the dumbest sentence ever printed by the New York Times. When referring to Obama, Dowd said “the Lanky One is like an Alice Waters organic chicken—“sleek, elegant, beautifully prepared. Too cool”—when what many working-class women are craving is mac and cheese.” Like so many of her colleagues in the press corps, including Robinson and Dionne, Dowd is an unrepentant elitist and bigot.

For the second time on this thread I will refer you to Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler. In his post today, Somerby said “In a rational universe, remarkably stupid people like Dowd would be kept far away from the topic of race. But this is a world in which stupid people are running our national discourse.”

So what does all of this have to do with Dionne? Well his column today was as fatuous as the Dowd column. The fact that this man gets to write for the Washington Post is mind boggling. What makes the Dionne article so contemptible is that he lied to his readers.

He accuses McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis of “making the preposterous charge that Obama had "played the race card” when this is precisely what Obama did. Remember the sequence of events. The McCain campaign ran an ad featuring Paris Hilton and Britney Spears that attempted to show that Obama was all sizzle and no steak. The ad had nothing to do with race and 80 percent of the people who saw it said it wasn’t racist. So how did Obama respond to the ad? By doing what he did against Clinton; he took refuge in racial accusations. Obama responded to the ad by saying McCain wants to “make you scared of me," noting that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents" on our currency. What’s the problem with the Dionne op ed? He fails to acknowledge that Obama’s comments were in response to the ad that McCain ran. In fact, not once in the entire column does he even mention the McCain ad that inspired the whole dust-up. That deliberate omission removes the context from everything that was said by both candidates. If you include all the facts, Obama’s behavior is unquestionably race baiting. But Dionne wants Obama to win, so what does Dionne do? He omits key facts to make McCain look bad and Obama look good. Dionne’s behavior was as bad as Dowd’s. It was contemptible.

But Dionne wasn’t finished distorting the facts. He goes on to say later in his column, “There is no doubt that two keys to this election are: “How many white and Latino votes will Obama lose because of his race that a white Democrat would have won? And how much will African American turnout grow, given the opportunity to elect our nation's first black president?”

So according to Dionne, if Obama isn’t elected it’s because white Americans won’t vote for a black candidate. The only problem is this; Kerry lost the white vote; Gore lost the white vote; Clinton (first term) lost the white vote; Dukakis lost the white vote; Carter (second term) lost the white vote. Presumably Dionne knew this but didn’t bother to bring it up. After all, it makes his narrative much less compelling.

And surprise, surprise, Dionne thinks there are two keys to the election; whether whites and Latinos are too bigoted to vote for an African American candidate and whether blacks turn out in large enough numbers. If he thinks there are any other “keys” to the election, he doesn’t bother to bring them up. No mention of Obama’s experience as a relevant factor. No mention of his policies. No mention of whether the millions of people that Obama insulted as “bitter” because of where they live or what they do for a living, should ignore the insult and vote for him anyway.

Sweetness, there is no question that supporters of both candidates have used racially (and religiously) charged language. Reverend Hagee and Father Pfleger are both contemptible (frankly I think Reverend Wright got a bad rap and is probably a decent guy). But of the two candidates still standing, the one who has race baited is Obama not McCain, at least so far.

And respectfully, Sweetness, it is particularly dismissive and bigoted to imply that somehow McCain (or Clinton) supporters are more likely to be racists than Obama supporters. I have no doubt that racism is pervasive in American society. But I would argue that Obama supporters are as likely, or more likely, to be racists than McCain supporters; and their racism is more insidious.

I’m not talking about Obama’s black supporters. The one thing I agree with Dionne about is that there is nothing wrong with appeals to racial solidarity. It’s Obama’s elite white supporters who, all too often, are the worst bigots of all. The professors, the University students, the think tank employees, the information technology workers, the Starbucks crowd. So often, they work in all white ghettoes, they live in all white ghettoes (suburbs or gentrifying urban communities), they eat in all white ghettoes, they buy their coffee in all white ghettoes and they recreate in all white ghettoes. And despite all of this, they just can’t get over how racist the working class white people are. How convenient for them that they can assuage their guilt by voting for a black candidate. After all, what do they care who wins. They’ll be just fine either way.

National polls are irrelevant. What we should all be looking at is the electoral map - and only the close states.

Obama overpolls, so he'd need to be up more than 5 for him to be confident. IF McCains within 5 of Obama in any state, I'd say it'll eventually end up a Red State, as late voters/undecideds in the Primary always went with Hillary.

WigWag,
Yikes! The Paris/Britney image is practically copy/pasted from "Call me Harold" (as Sweetness noted somewhere). There is this bizarre underlying anxiety/fantasy about black male desire for blonde white women that McCain is playing on. Second, Kos had some reference to McCain's having used the dollar bill thing a while ago. I'd have to search to find the reference (from a few days ago I think). Third, not sure all those technocratic white people really are so racist. There's economic stratification in this country and there's a lot of racial stratification in the economic sphere. Thus, what looks like elite/technocratic racial separation can often be explained more by economic issues than by racial issues. Wealthy people live where there's money.

On the idea that lots of Dems have lost the white vote and so if whites don't Obama-ize that shows they are racist: First, the Southern strategy is precisely to racialize the support of dems. So, choosing a rep over a dem could easily have been a racial choice. Second, remember this is supposed to be a "change election" when we have all realized that Republican policies have wrecked the nation. So choosing another Republican, unless you're in the top 1% of the economy, is beyond foolish. Some people, of course, don't realize that this election is a "change election", so they can be explained easily. But the ones who know that there's a problem with Republican policies but who still choose McCain over Obama -- now there's a group to wonder about. Some of these votes can be explained by being "rubbed the wrong way", but a number of them can be explained by various kinds of racial concerns.

The appearance of Paris and Britney and uppity and presumptuous and new and foreign (why, even the Germans like him) -- is all designed to bring out the underlying racial suspicions that run deep in this culture. Note the word "suspicion". It may well be not pathological racism so much as a kind of discomfort that comes from just not dealing often with race issues. That is, racial suspicion can perhaps be separated from out and out racism.

In short, then, we've been asked by McCain to choose the less popular guy we don't really like as much because the more popular guy is, well, too popular and too attractive and more likely to desire all the blondes and be desired by them. Voting, then, becomes the act of choosing AGAINST desire rather than for desire. Very clever strategy.