[Ed: Guess this means that Palin--and McCain--won't playing the "gender card" anytime soon.]

By Karen Breslau 

When Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin arrived backstage for our NEWSWEEK Women & Leadership Event in Los Angeles last March, John McCain had just wrapped up the GOP nomination. Palin had yet to endorse McCain—she liked Mitt Romney—and as we waited in the green room, I urged her to "feel free" to make some news on stage. She grinned broadly—looking back, I guess it was a grin of the Cheshire Cat variety—and thanked me for the offer.

Once onstage, together with Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Palin talked about what women expect from women leaders; how she took charge in Alaska during a political scandal that threatened to unseat the state's entire Republican power structure, and her feelings about Sen. Hillary Clinton. (She said she felt kind of bad she couldn't support a woman, but she didn't like Clinton's "whining.")

I joked with her about being on McCain's short list for vice president, and we had a good chuckle. We also talked about the challenges of running a government while also raising a large and young family. At the time, I didn't know that Palin, clad in a loose, dark dress, was seven months pregnant with her fifth child. An aide called me the next day to tell me that Palin would be announcing the pregnancy at home in Alaska and that she had wanted me to know as a courtesy. She was sorry she hadn't mentioned it the night before.

READ THE REST HERE.
 

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DENVER--Consider it David Plouffe's mantra. Speaking Wednesday afternoon to a sizable delegation of NEWSWEEK reporters, editors and underpaid, overworked bloggers who go by the nom d'ecran Stumper, Barack Obama's data-driven campaign manager swatted down nearly every process question we tossed his way--from Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko to the narrowing polls and McCain's misleading attack ads--with a few simple words. "All we care about in this campaign are the voters in our 18 battleground states," said the sanguine, smiling Plouffe. "That's all we care about." According to him, the national surveys are, at this point, nonsense; the election, he says, will "hinge on turnout"--which he predicts could boost Obama's total vote share by "a point to four points." To back up his boasts, Plouffe gave us a glimpse into the current state of play in some of the key November battlegrounds--at least as they look from Chicago. Here's the skinny:

The Kerry States: New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin
The strategy starts with holding the 251 electoral votes that John Kerry won in 2004; of those states, four are currently on Obama's battleground list. Even though McCain has been leaning hard in Pennsylvania, Plouffe noted, the polls currently show Obama with a five to 10 point advantage. What's more, the Democrats have gained 316,000 new registrations since January, while the Republicans have lost 60,000. The result, says Plouffe, is that "in a state where we already have a demographic advantage, where our base vote is higher than McCain's, he's going to have to win a massive amount of the swing vote to have a chance." He's less confident, however, about Michigan, which was off-limits to Obama during the primaries. "Obama is less formed in Michigan as a campaign and as individual," he says, "so we've had to play catch-up." That's why Obama held his two biggest endorsement rallies--John Edwards and Al Gore--in the Great Lakes State. Asked whether selecting Mitt Romney as his running mate could help McCain clinch it, Plouffe was ready with a red-meat retort. "Presumably the reason to pick Romney would be to help on the economy," he said. "But boy, that would be the greatest job-killing machine in the history of American politics. Mitt Romney is an expert on Cayman Island tax shelters. You couldn't have a more out-of-touch ticket."

The Tipping Points: Ohio and Florida
One major benefit of Obama's expanded battlefield, according to Plouffe, is that "there are a lot of scenarios where we don't need" Ohio and Florida to win the election. Still, Team Obama is "pouring everything we can into those states." The reason? because "if we win Ohio or Florida, I don't think John McCain has any chance to win the presidency," he said. Regarding Ohio, he confessed that "it's close now, it'll be close in September and it'll be close in October." Surprisingly, Plouffe seemed more "bullish" about Florida--a state that many Republicans have said belongs to McCain. Asked why, he pointed to the the 900,000 voters under 40 and the 600,00 African-Americans who were registered but didn't vote in 2004--as well as a combined total of more than a million unregistered voters in both demographic groups. "The places where you have the highest number of base voters are the places you have the best chance of winning," he said. "We think there's going to be slightly more than 10 million people voting in Florida. Our base, we think, is more than 5 million. You gotta like that. Now, I'm not saying we're going to turn everyone out. But it lessens the amount of the swing vote you have to get."

The Targets: Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina, New Mexico, Iowa
Confident that Obama will win two of 2004's closest red states, Plouffe noted that his boss is polling outside the margin of error in New Mexico and Iowa. "They're the most likely to flip," he said. Virginia, Colorado and North Carolina will be trickier. Plouffe is buoyed by the recent influx of young professionals to the suburbs of Northern Virginia, but admitted that registering new residents is tricky and said that Obama can win without them provided he turns out the youth and black votes. "We're not just trying to increase turnout," he said. "We're trying to get the highest percentage of African-Americans to vote in our electoral history, and the highest percentage of voters under 30." Claiming Obama has a "slim lead," Plouffe plans to target voters who say they're supporting former governor Mark Warner's Senate run but still aren't sure about Obama. "Warner gives us a clear sense of who's available," he said. Meanwhile, Plouffe was confident that Obama can catch up in North Carolina, where he trails by a few points--again thanks to black voters and young whites. As for Colorado, Plouffe pointed to last night event's at Invesco stadium, where each of the 60,000 additional attendees--25,000 of who hail from the Centennial State--agreed to serve as neighborhood captains or volunteers in exchange for a seat. "While the Republicans criticize, we choose to organize," he said. "McCain's going to have a very, very hard time winning in November if he can't win here."
 

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1. For a Dem, Obama is unusually strong in the Mountain West, running close to or ahead of McCain in the red states of Montana, Colorado, Alaska, Nevada and North Dakota. It's obvious that Palin complicates Alaska. But I wonder whether she'll have an impact in the rest of these races. With all that hunting, fishing, snowmobiling and moose eating, she's certainly the most culturally Western of 2008's four ticket-topping candidates, and it'll be interesting to see if she's able to counteract Obama's efforts to expand the map in this all-important region.

2. One of the most promising lines of attack against McCain--that he chose the "underqualified" Palin solely for the crass political purpose of expanding his share of the women's vote, thereby underscoring how "desperate" the "original maverick" has become--won't really work. Why? Because Palin is actually, you know, a woman. I suspect that most undecided voters will see it as a good thing that America now is poised to make history no matter who wins--regardless of what sort of political calculations went into the pick. Your average voter doesn't dig deep into strategy; they see the broad strokes, the pretty picture. Whether McCain actually wins over more women because of Palin is another story. That he expects Hillary Holdouts to vote for a green governor who disagrees with them on most of the issues after they raised hell about the prospect of Obama putting any woman but Clinton in the White House--even though, say, Kathleen Sebelius shared their stances on everything from abortion to equal pay--strains at the boundaries of reason. But who said any of this was reasonable? And I agree with Marc Ambinder that "undecided women, weakly partisan Democrats, independent suburban women, women between the ages of 30 and 50, will now take a hard second look at John McCain because of his choice of Sarah Palin." Not necessarily votes, just second looks. Such are identity politics.

3.  Reader K.S. of Denver presents the strongest possible case against Palin:

The selection criteria for a vice president, by both parties' definition, is the ability to immediately and effectively assume the responsibilities of the presidency. That's a critically important criteria given McCain's age and health. Can you imagine this self-described soccer mom negotiating with Putin or Maliki or whomever is in power in Iran or China or North Korea? Working with NATO?  Serving as commander-in-chief in a time of war? Has she ever met with any of our allies? Has she ever visited a foreign country? Does she have any understanding of economics? Has she even walked down Wall Street? How does being a mayor of a town of 8,000 or so and then serving a 2-year-stint as head of the country's smallest-populated state qualify her for these tasks?

Going forward, the challenge for Democrats is following K.S.'s lead without a) seeming too eager to imply that McCain is on the verge of croaking, which older voters will find offensive or b) reminding swing voters that they're still sort of unsure whether Obama's three-year stint in the Senate and decade or so in Springfield qualify him for those tasks, either. As I wrote earlier, most folks think an underqualified president is worse than an underqualified vice-president, so it's not necessarily a topic that Chicago wants to dwell on. That said, the Biden-Palin debate is going to be must-see TV.

P.S. For a comprehensive Palin profile, I highly recommend the Almanac of American Politics.

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Here's the witty and wise Jeremy McCarter on Obama's acceptance speech:

The view from Stumper's seat as Obama arrived on stage.

Someone should invite Barack Obama to give an explanation of particle physics while wrestling a gator. Short of that, I don't what could make him give a flat or faltering speech. The oratorical challenges that life has thrown at him over the last four years—the 2004 convention, the race speech, Berlin—have given chance after chance to flop, but the man seems incapable of doing so. Thursday night's challenge was one of the tallest: bringing the Democratic National Convention to a crescendo without providing fodder for those who think him a preening, grandiose celebrity. So he took his inside voice with him to the cavernous Invesco Field, and used it to deliver what might be the most intimate talk ever offered to a crowd of 80,000.

Obama described the speech as "workmanlike." That's true, in the sense that it didn't have the rhetorical flights of some of his previous talks. But it also implies a level of strain, of visible effort, nowhere in evidence. (It sounded workmanlike only in the way that Tiger Woods going eight under for the round is workmanlike.)

He needed all his gifts for this one, beginning with the agile, dynamic voice—an instrument that lets him, like a singer with a four-octave range, hit notes and make tonal shifts unavailable to the rest of us. "What the naysayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me," he said, using a pianissimo note to draw people closer, before booming: "It's about you." There's also the sheer quality of the writing, not just the arc and the rhythmic drive of the overall speech, but little flecks of language, as when he described the promise of a democracy "where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort." Grace, the unexpectedly delicate word, recasts the whole sentence, makes you listen anew.

The good news for the Democrats is that Obama did what they needed him to do; the bad news is how much they needed him to do.

READ THE REST HERE.
 

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By Holly Bailey 

(AP Photo / Stephan Savoia)

DAYTON, Ohio--Preceded by Van Halen's hit "Right Now," John McCain just took to the stage here in Dayton, where he introduced his new running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. According to the campaign, about 15,000 people are on hand this afternoon, easily one of McCain's biggest crowds this campaign. Before he could begin speaking the crowd began serenading the senator with "Happy Birthday," as today is also McCain's 72nd birthday. "Thanks for reminding me," he joked.

In introducing Palin, McCain praised his pick as someone that has a record of fighting against "corruption and politics of the past." "She's got the grit, integrity, good sense and fierce devotion to the common good that is exactly what we need in Washington today," McCain said. "She's exactly who I need. She's exactly what this country needs." In taking the stage, Palin praised the women who had run before her, citing Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton. "She left 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling," Palin said of Clinton. "But it turns out women aren't finished. We can shatter that ceiling."

Already, the Obama campaign has criticized the Palin pick, raising questions about what likely will be a big issue heading into the final two months of the campaign: Palin's status as a political newcomer. "John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in an email to reporters. Yet it appears the McCain campaign anticipated this line of argument. The official release announcing Palin as the pick is after the jump—expect much more to come:

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CHARLOTTE, N.C.--John McCain really, really wants to win. So badly, in fact, that he choose a veep who has the same handicap he's always criticizing Obama for--inexperience. Only worse.

I just landed here in North Carolina after taking a 6:45 a.m. flight out of Denver.  This meant, of course, that I didn't get to experience the revelation of McCain's new running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in real time. But the awkward timing did afford me an interesting vantage point on the announcement, as all of the Democratic delegates, strategists and various and sundry other politicos on board my Boeing A321learned the news simultaneously, the moment the plane touched down, from the tiny flickering screens of their trusty CrackBerries.

The best way to describe the reaction aboard U.S. Airways Flight 1520: shock and awe.

I've done eight or nine "Veepwatch" profiles of McCain's possible picks: Romney, Pawlenty, Portman, Ridge et al. I never bothered to include Palin. The main reason: with only a small-town mayoralty and less than two years of governoring under her belt, the Alaskan, I suspected, would have a tough time passing McCain's "is she ready to be president?" test--the candidate's (oft-repeated) top criterion for picking a veep. "I'm aware of the enhanced importance of this issue given my age," McCain told Don Imus in early April, and it was hard to see how asking someone with an even shorter C.V. than Obama to stand a mere (septuagenarian's) heartbeat away from the Oval Office wouldn't hinder the Republicans' ability to attack the Illinois senator for his alleged "inexperience."

But now my gut tells me this won't be a huge problem for Crystal City--even though the Dems will rightly do their darndest make it one. "Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton in an immediate statement (watch for the coming swipes at Palin's ties to Big Oil). The problem, though, is that every time Chicago calls Palin green, it gives McCain yet another opportunity to question Obama's own resume. The pick presents Democrats with a knotty challenge: how do you argue that a fresh, groundbreaking Washington outsider is too inexperienced to be second fiddle while at the same time arguing that Obama--a fresh, groundbreaking Washington outsider himself--is ready to lead the free world? The truth is, no one votes against a ticket topped by someone as seasoned as McCain solely because the No. 2 isn't an old Washington hand--especially when she's as compelling and complementary a character as Palin, a youngish former beauty-queen and mother of five who hunts, ice fishes, rides snowmobiles, eats moose hamburgers and owns a float plane. But plenty of folks are willing to reject a No. 1. solely on the basis of a skimpy resume. In other words, experience is an argument McCain WANTS to have--and Palin, oddly enough, helps him have it. And it's no coincidence that the people Palin was chosen in part to woo--disaffected Hillary Dems--tend to think that Obama is not qualified for the White House. She's a political pick meant for maximum electoral impact.

As thumbs twiddled over trackballs and Beltway types barked into their phones, I overheard a few telling reactions. "It's very savvy," said a black strategist heading to Washington, D.C. "Biden can't really hit her hard because she's a woman. He risks looking sexist." A stewardess said she was "pissed": "Does he think we're stupid enough to vote for a woman just because she's a woman?" Meanwhile, the man seated next to me, also en route to the capital, read a quote from Karlo Rove about the pick "reshaping both parties' coalitions" and pumped me for more info. A few rows back, a woman called a colleague to ask if Palin is "attractive." "Is she attractive?" she repeated when her interlocutor misheard. "IS SHE ATTRAC... nevermind." But the most revealing response came from a tall gentlemen with reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. "Whooooaaaa," he said into his phone. "Sarah Who?"

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When I wrote last year about the Center for Global Development’s Carbon Monitoring for Action database last November when it launched, I noted what a wealth of information it offered on sources of carbon dioxide emissions throughout the world, from the worst actors down to whether your own utility is an angel or a villain when it comes to CO² emissions. With its latest data, CGD shows again what a mess we’re in when it comes to reining in greenhouse emissions. Some highlights, which are more lowlights:

*China set a new world record this year, surpassing the U.S. as the world’s biggest emitter of CO² from power generation (itself the source of just over one-quarter of the world’s CO² emissions). But Americans can still be proud that their power-sector emissions are still nearly four times those of China on a per capita basis—though not number one globally. That “honor” goes to Australia, with 10 tons of CO² per person per year compared to the U.S.’s 9.5.

*China accounts for more than half of the increase in global CO² emissions due to power generation over the past year, mostly due to the construction of, on average, one new coal-fired plant every week.

*Chinese power plants will produce about 3.1 billion tons of CO² this year, up from about 2.7 billion tons in 2007. Power plants in the U.S will produce about 2.8 billion tons of CO² this year, about the same as last year.

*Global emissions from power generation have grown just over 34 percent in the past eight years, to 11.4 billion tons per year from 8.5 billion tons in 2000. Those additional 2.9 billion tons are equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of Australia, France, Germany, Italy and Spain combined. I really don’t think you are turning down your thermostat in winter or your AC in summer, people. As CGD’s David Wheeler put it, “Emissions from power generation are racing in the wrong direction.” Did someone say Kyoto?

*Since it’s always fun to know who are the worst villains, CARMA finds that the world’s biggest corporate carbon emitter is China’s Huaneng Power International, whose plants pump out about 285 million tons of CO² per year, compared to 227 million tons produced by all of the power plants in the United Kingdom and almost as much as all of Africa (335 million tons). In the U.S., the biggest CO² emitter is Southern Co. with over 200 million tons per year, followed by American Electric Power Company Inc. (175 million tons) and Duke Energy Corp. (112 million tons).

Does anyone really think we’re going to conserve our way out of a climate crisis? As CGD’s Kevin Ummel says, “The needed shift to renewable and low-carbon alternatives is happening far too slowly to avert dangerous climate change.” T. Boone Pickens, you have your work cut out for you.

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By Holly Bailey 

Running Mate: Palin

DAYTON, Ohio--If there’s one thing you can say about John McCain’s campaign today, the senator and his aides certainly know how to keep a secret. With just a few hours to go before McCain hits the stage with his vice presidential running mate, reporters on the ground here in Dayton are still unsure of who the potential veep might be. There’s much buzz about a private flight that landed near here last night. CNN is reporting that a man, woman and two teenagers got off the plane and boarded vans late last night. With Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty not anywhere near Ohio this morning, the buzz suggests McCain may have picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his ticket. MSNBC reports that information is solid, although campaign aides still aren’t confirming anything officially.

No question, Palin would be a surprise pick. Though she was reportedly one of the first people interviewed by official McCain vetter Arthur Culvahouse last May, Palin has been off largely off the veep radar of late. Many Republicans ruled her out because, at 44, she’s younger than Obama and has only been governor for two years. (Before that, she was a city council member for four years.) Some insiders believed Palin, a relative newcomer, might undermine McCain’s lack of experience argument against Obama. Then there have been personal issues. Palin recently became a mother again. In April, she gave birth to her fifth child, a son diagnosed with Down syndrome. More recently, she has been caught up in a controversy over whether she or her staff tried to get her ex-brother in law fired as an Alaska state trooper. She has denied any wrongdoing, yet it was widely assumed the probe, which is still on-going, may have harmed her chances of being named to the GOP ticket. We’ll know for sure in a few hours.

Yet Palin, in hindsight, looks like an obvious pick for McCain. Not only is she one of the most popular public figures in the country—her approval rating, according to the Anchorage Daily News, tops 80 percent—Palin came to office running a clean government campaign and has fought for ethics reform. Among other things, she supports drilling in Alaska, with limits, she's pro-life and she's a fiscal conservative. And she’s a lady—something that, if she’s the pick, surely figured into the McCain strategy of hoping to woo upset Hillary Clinton supporters. Plus, Palin's an interesting character: a former beauty queen, she was a star high school basketball player (she was known as “Sarah Barracuda” for her intense play). Palin married her childhood sweetheart, a blue collar oil field worker (who is on leave, so as not to create a conflict of interest). She hunts, she fishes, and earlier this year, she posed for Vogue. Could Palin be the one? We’ll know soon enough.

UPDATE 10:35 a.m. ET: A campaign aide says it's Palin. More to come.

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A round-up of this morning's must-read stories. 

IN SPEECH, BRINGING LOFTY WORDS DOWN TO EARTH
(Patrick Healy, New York Times)
Mr. Obama showed real fire, and directed memorable fire at his opponent, even on Mr. McCain’s signature issue, national security. “If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament and judgment to serve as the next commander in chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have,” he said.

OBAMA MASTERS HIS MOMENT
(Roger Simon, Politico)
He did a little inspiration, he did a little substance, he did a little attack, he did a little defense, he did a little everything except let his audience down.  

OBAMA GETS SERIOUS
(Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal)
The speech itself lacked lift but had heft. It wasn't precisely long on hope, but I think it showed audacity. In fact, by the end of the speech I thought it was quite a gamble. This was not a "Happy Days Are Here Again." This was not Smiling O. He was not the charmer or the celebrity, and he didn't try much humor. Mr. Obama often looked stern, and somewhat indignant, certainly serious throughout.

FOR THE DESCENDANTS OF KING’S DREAM, A NEW DAY DAWNS
(Kevin Merida, Washington Post)
Forty-five years ago, many of those who jammed the Mall in Washington to hear a young Baptist preacher exhort the nation to be better were just trying to get the foot off their necks, win the right to vote, stay at a highway motel, eat at a decent diner. They were trying to send injustice packing. Not elect a black man president. Most had not yet envisioned that.

THE PERFECT STRANGER
(Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post)
The air of unease at the Democratic convention this week was not just a result of the Clinton psychodrama. The deeper anxiety was that the party was nominating a man of many gifts but precious few accomplishments -- bearing even fewer witnesses.So where are the colleagues? The buddies? The political or spiritual soul mates? His most important spiritual adviser and mentor was Jeremiah Wright. But he's out. Then there's William Ayers, with whom he served on a board. He's out. Where are the others? The oddity of this convention is that its central figure is the ultimate self-made man, a dazzling mysterious Gatsby. The palpable apprehension is that the anointed is a stranger -- a deeply engaging, elegant, brilliant stranger with whom the Democrats had a torrid affair. Having slowly woken up, they see the ring and wonder who exactly they married last night.

CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP... 
 

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DENVER--Barack Obama just wrapped up his nomination speech here at Mile High stadium, and it's already clear that the chattering classes are content. "Magnificent," said Pat Buchanan. "Awfully impressive," added Bill Kristol. "A masterpiece," concluded David Gergen. The reaction in the stands--shouting, stomping, phoning loved ones, snapping photos, weeping--wasn't much more equivocal. That said, it's worth remembering, despite all the understandable uplift, that neither pundits nor partisans will decide November's election--and worth wondering what the people who will (that is, undecideds) thought of Obama's performance.

Considering that Chicago distributed the evening's 60,000 civilian tickets solely to supporters who'd agreed to volunteer for the campaign, I wasn't expecting to find many Nobamans in the crowd. Fortunately, I stumbled upon Malissa Garcia. Her path to Mile High was somewhat circuitous--to say the least. Last weekend, CNN asked Garcia, a 23-year-old hairstylist at the nearby Oxford Club Salon, whether she'd be willing to spend the convention primping, preening and priming on-air Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez and her headful of extensions. She immediately accepted. After four days of follicular service, Sanchez rewarded her loyal tresswoman today with a ticket to the show--and Garcia, reluctant to miss "history," was soon sitting in Section 133 with a tray of chicken fingers on her lap and a camera (one video, one still) in either hand.

She arrived a skeptic. Unlike the hyperinformed true believers who make the most noise online and on the air--and, incidentally, like the vast majority of Americans--Garcia "hasn't been paying much attention to politics this year." Before tonight, in fact, she'd never seen Obama speak. Still, as a committed Clintonista during the Democratic primaries--"the country was in good shape when they were in the White House"--she told me she wasn't sure she'd be voting for the Illinois senator come fall. It wasn't her Republican family giving her grief--Garcia( defied them to support John Kerry in 2004--and it wasn't anything she knew about the nominee. Instead, it was what she didn't know. Saying she was "worried" by an email she'd received, Garcia, a "serious Christian," ran through an abridged list of familiar false Obama rumors: he "doesn't say the Pledge of Allegiance"; he may be "a Muslim"; he was "sworn in [to the Senate] on an Iraq Bible." (I take back that "familiar.") Do you believe them? I asked. "I don't know," she said. "Maybe I won't vote. I'll just let God figure it out."

Then came the feature presentation, with all its pundit-pleasing magnificence and impressiveness and masterpieciosity. As confetti mingled with smoke above the stadium and the Obaman hordes shuffled towards the exits, I asked Garcia whether Obama's performance had changed her mind. "Actually, yes," she said. "I really liked it." So if you had to vote today... "I think I'd vote for Obama," she interrupted. "I'm, like, 75 percent sure." Garcia said she was hooked when Monica Early of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio--one of a series of "ordinary Americans" who spoke before the senator--confessed that she too had received a "scary email," but had discovered, after checking the facts, that "Barack Obama is a man of faith, a man of values and a man of action." She didn't love Obama's line about civil unions ("I don't agree with that"), but his armada of generals and riffs on education and health care more than made up for it. "My husband and I pay $400 a month, and that's only with partial dental and partial eye," she told me. Before the speech, Garcia associated Obama with "inexperience." But now, she said, "I think he can make change. And middle-class people like me really need change."

This is, of course, exactly what Chicago wants to hear. In fact, Garcia's reactions were so on message, I began to wonder whether David Axelrod had taken to creating cyborgs in his spare time. All kidding aside, Garcia is proof positive that Axelrod and Co. know their targets. They know that the most voters are only tuning in now. They know that a lot of early support is soft, and easily swayed by biographical details, strong surrogates and an isolated policy or two. They know that most former Clintonites aren't dead-enders. And they know that the best way to compete with a caricature of your candidate is to expose as many people as possible to the real thing. What happened to Garcia at Mile High tonight undoubtedly happened to voters all across the country (only without all the confetti). But the flipside of such an easy swing--which will likely show up soon in the polls--is that John McCain has a chance to swing the same people back his way next week in St. Paul, Minn. As Garcia told me, "now I'm going to have to watch the Republicans."

Curious, I asked whether she knew anything about McCain. "Just that he's just like Bush," she said.

Somewhere, David Axelrod is smiling.  

*We exaggerate.
 

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By Tom Watson

In the upper reaches of Invesco Field, there is a collision of cultures afoot. Here in the stands, reporters and editors sit cheek by jowl with Obama delegates. Their interests diverge. One group whistles, screams, and stomps its feet so hard it moves one's insides around. The other sits and stares at little screens, flailing away at laptops and BlackBerries, trying to capture the moment and keep their bosses happy.

This behavior baffles the party faithful. "You call that journalism?," one puzzled partisan exclaimed, as fingers flew over the tiny keys. Elsewhere, the journalists' tendency to leave much-in-demand seats to track down outlets for their many plugs created tension with the die-hard Obama fans seeking the best vantage point from which to hail their hero. When you sit mute while everyone else is raising the roof, people look at you funny. Then, the moment of truth: a surge of enthusiasm swept through Section 133. The partisans looked over expectantly. The journalists huddled: Is it a conflict of interest for the Fourth Estate to do the wave?

The unanimous decision: Yes we can't.
 

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DENVER--Barack Obama may not look like the presidents on our printed money--but there's at least one guy out there who looks a lot like him.

With more than 50,000 people packed into Invesco Field and security everywhere, it isn't easy to get around. But be thankful you're not Giraud Puschet. A young Cuban-American PR rep for Miami's Americateve 41, he has the unfortunate burden--at least for today--of bearing a striking resemblance to the newly-minted Democratic nominee.

I spotted Mr. Puschet on the stairs of Section 134 struggling to escape from a Ukrainian TV interviewer determined to capture him on camera. "I'm not the man," he told the reporter, pointing to Obama's stage. "He's the man." Soon, the entire section was snapping photos. Behind me, a woman in a red Obama t-shirt said that she had buttonholed "the lookalike" earlier. "I asked Obama if he'd take a picture with me," she said. "He even kissed my hand!"

Maybe being Obama isn't so bad after all.
 

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It goes without saying that there was much suspense on John McCain’s campaign plane this afternoon as it traveled from Phoenix to Dayton, Ohio, where McCain is expected to unveil his vice presidential running mate tomorrow. But campaign aides weren’t talking. “I will not discuss the process,” McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan told anxious reporters. “I’m going to have to refer those questions to Baskin-Robbins.” Come again?

Let’s start from the beginning: Shortly after 3 p.m. EST, McCain, joined by his wife, Cindy, boarded his campaign plane in Arizona. Noticeably absent were the cadre of senior aides McCain huddled with in Arizona this week, including strategists Steve Schmidt and Charlie Black and speechwriter Mark Salter. Shortly after take-off, Steve Duprey, a longtime McCain friend and self-proclaimed “chief morale officer” wandered back to the press cabin, where he exhibited a few new t-shirts he recently designed for the campaign. (“Barack Obama and Paris Hilton,” one read. “At least one of them has a good energy policy.”) Duprey grinned and announced that he had come up with a new song in honor of the day. Humming it to the tune of Bobby McFerrin’s 80s cheeseball hit, “Don’t Worry Be Happy,” he sang:

You say you don’t know news to write
And your editors are uptight
Don’t worry… be happy
Say you have veepstakes blues
Just sit back and have some booze
Don’t worry… be happy
Deadlines come, deadlines go
Well soon enough you’ll know
Don’t worry… be happy
You could stay up all night
But you might not guess it right
Don’t worry… Its Duprey
Be happy… Its Duprey

Mid-flight, Kimmie Lipscomb, who handles press advance for the campaign, began walking the aisle with a tray of Baskin-Robbins ice cream cups filled with the chain’s latest flavor, “Straight Talk Crunch.” (Obama, it seems, will also get his own flavor, “Whirl of Change.”) McCain’s concoction, produced with no input by the candidate, is a swirl of vanilla ice cream, caramel, white chocolate and, subject of much dispute among the press corps, a nut or a crunchy candy bar. “I believe it's almonds,” one reporter said. “No, it’s a walnut,” another insisted. Meanwhile, Buchanan insisted there was a hint of Heath Bar. “There’s some toffee in there,” she said. But after some intense questioning about the exact recipe, she declined to answer any further questions. “We will not talk about the ice cream process,” she declared. What did McCain think of the concoction? “It’s delicious,” he said, according to Buchanan—though even that was of some dispute. “Is he saying it's delicious or is that you saying it's delicious,” a reporter asked, his fingers positioned on the keyboard of his laptop. “He said it. He said, quote, 'it’s delicious,'” Buchanan said, a trace of annoyance in her voice. A short while later, McCain deplaned in Dayton, where the pool of reporters there on hand to film his arrival had nearly tripled from its usual size. “Have you made the decision? Will we know tonight?” reporters shouted. McCain waved off the question, shooting members of the media a thumbs up.

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DENVER--The Democratic convention has already moved to Invesco Field, but that hasn't stopped the GOP from making mischief back at the Pepsi Center. On my walk from the parking structure to the NEWSWEEK workspace this afternoon, I stumbled across a posse of young men and women wearing togas, waving "The One" placards and chanting, in the adoring drone of brainwashed Branch Davidians, "Change! Hope! O-BAM-A!" One sign read "The Temple of O." I figured they were referring to the neoclassical stage where Obama is planning to accept the Democratic nomination tonight.

"Look to the clouds!" shouted one worshiper.

"Is he descending yet?" asked another.

"He must descend so we can change," the first one intoned. Then they began singing "O-bam-a" to the tune of Handel's "Messiah."

When they stopped, I approached and asked if they were representing anyone in particular. "Obama," said a tall goateed gentlemen. "Obama," repeated a shorter, clean-shaven woman. "He is 'The One.'" "What about that McCain sticker on your toga?" I asked, pointing at the McCain sticker on another man's toga." "I'm not worthy, so I'm supporting McCain," he explained. I didn't bother to mention the RNC credentials--complete with the party's "A Mile High, One Inch Deep" slogan--dangling from everyone's belt loops.

As I walked away, a woman who'd traveled from Montana to see Obama's acceptance speech sidled up beside me. "What did you think of those Obama fans?" I asked. "Stupid," she said. "All the negative people are voting for McCain." Then she joined the throngs for the long walk to Invesco.
 

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When Machiavelli warned “before all else, be armed,” he probably couldn’t envision how a Youtube videoblogger known as richprince78 would use his advice a few hundred years down the line. Armed with his camera and the support of a buzzing new media presence at the DNC, Iowa City-based Rich Peters, the winner of a joint Youtube/DNC video competition, is one of thousands of new media troops swarming the Democratic National Convention this week to promote their cause.

Shameless DNC PR stunt? Absolutely. But if you’re looking for an on-the-ground look at life at the convention, the kid-with-camera strategy is nifty enough. Peters, a recent law school graduate, has been chronicling his adventures stumping for the Obama campaign since he joined up last November. After Youtube fans voted him in for the DNC slot, he hit the trail with the traveling press pool and roamed the halls of the Pepsi Center, picking up interviews with delegates, activists, protestors, and even NEWSWEEK’s very own Jonathan Alter along the way. All of which is to say that his Youtube channel, www.youtube.com/richprince78, is pretty well stocked, while maintaining that down-home raw footage charm.

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NEWSWEEK's Matthew Link files this report from Denver



As a longtime friend of Rep. Barney Frank, I was offered the chance to bunk on an extra bed in his driver’s room at the Denver convention--giving a whole new meaning to the idea of a literally embedded journalist.

Following Frank around the convention has been both eye-opening and exhausting, not only because of the crazy schedule and hours (three or four worthwhile events, parties, speeches or caucuses happen concurrently at any given hour of day or night), but for the incredible access to the stars of the Democratic Party. I plopped myself down at a delegate luncheon, and realized my tablemates were three Democratic members of Congress--Frank, Lynn Woosley of California and Jerry Nadler of New York, with Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin waving to us from the next table over. At Nancy Pelosi’s ballroom party on Monday night, I watched Tony Bennett and James Taylor sing a duet, and that afternoon I nearly spilled my Sprite on a smiling George McGovern as I passed him in the hallway of the Pepsi Center.

Like many journalists, I was expecting at least some drama at the convention--maybe not as tumultuous as the riot-heavy 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, but at least some shouting matches between Hillary and Obama supporters. Instead, protestors were hard to spot in Denver. The only skirmish I witnessed was a predictable shouting match between pro-choice and anti-abortion proponents, politely occurring across one of Denver’s clean, spacious downtown streets. Police in riot gear on horseback quickly showed up, but seemed unfazed by the goings-on. The city seemed quiet and intent and focused on one goal: Getting Obama into the White House no matter what. I’m sure there are some Republicans somewhere in Denver, but I didn’t see much of them.

After Ted Kennedy’s appearance on the convention floor on Monday, which electrified the audience of the Pepsi Center, Frank was invited to join his fellow Massachusetts resident for breakfast Tuesday morning. It was a small, intimate get-together with family and friends of Kennedy. I asked how the senator was doing, and Frank told me, “Ted looked great, and his memory was amazing. He remembered a letter I had sent him some months ago. I think he’ll be around for a long while.” Perhaps the torch wouldn’t be passed as soon as people think.

Later, I followed Frank to a gay and lesbian delegate luncheon he was hosting. Michelle Obama showed up and the crowd went insane with standing ovation after standing ovation. Frequently peppering her speech with the pronouns “we” and “us” when talking about LGBT citizens, Obama finished her pro-gay oration by proclaiming, “Change never happens easily. We need you. I am grateful to you.”

Even though it’s my first convention, I had a feeling that something profound is happening in Denver. No matter what the outcome, history has occurred before my eyes. As Barney so understatedly put it to me, “The first convention I went to was in 1968. I can tell you this one is a little bit different.”

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Into a political season that has already seen the McCain campaign put out its share of sharp and sometimes misleading anti-Obama ads comes this higher note: John McCain congratulating his opponent on his nomination.

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By Holly Bailey 

(AP Photo / Mary Altaffer)

Within the hour, John McCain is due at the Phoenix airport, where he will board his campaign plane en route Dayton, Ohio. The big question: When will we know who McCain has picked as his running mate? So far, McCain and the small circle of campaign aides with whom he has been consulting on the decision aren’t talking, not even hinting, at who his No. 2 might be, though it’s presumed whoever he or she is knows by now.

One thing is clear: The campaign is making no effort to stop the intense speculation over when McCain will announce. It has been widely assumed that McCain will appear with his No. 2 at a rally in Dayton Friday morning, although aides have pointedly refused to confirm that. A few days ago, the rumor mill suggested that the senator could push up that announcement to today, in an attempt to steal some of the thunder from Barack Obama’s speech tonight in Denver. Asked about the plans, an aide again said, “No comment.” More recently, speculation has centered on scheduled 6 p.m. rally at a ballpark near Pittsburgh on Saturday night. Reporters traveling with McCain quickly took note of the late starting time, as McCain rarely does night events, especially on the weekend. Of course, the campaign won’t say anything.

A few days ago, a senior McCain aide insisted the campaign looked to Thursday as “Obama’s night”—suggesting, though not outright saying, McCain would not appear with his VP pick today. (Hey, there’s always an airport arrival in Dayton, folks.) But what the campaign has done is partially divert the press’s attention away from a night that should have been ruled by the Democrats. But the McCain campaign may face a little trouble of its own next week, as a tropical storm (and possible hurricane) Gustav bears down on the Gulf Coast, taking aim at New Orleans as early as Monday. Ironically, that’s the night President Bush is scheduled to speak to delegates at the GOP convention in St. Paul. So far, GOP officials are waiting to see what happens with the storm, but a McCain aide, who declined to be named, says the campaign has a “contingency plan” in place and is examining various scenarios including possibly postponing aspects of the convention. “We’re monitoring the situation very closely, and we’ll make plans accordingly,” McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker told NEWSWEEK.

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