I'm going to start my plea with a little story. My wife and I are enthusiastic Obama volunteers in Norcross, a northern suburb of Atlanta that is probably 80% Republican. In July, I said to my wife what if we go to visit my mother for Election Day and then volunteer there. Her response (and she is fine with my mother) - HECK NO! YOU DON'T HAVE FAITH, BUT OBAMA IS GOING TO WIN GEORGIA. She reminds me every day that she has known all along that Obama is going to win this election and he is going to win Georgia, and I am wasting all my time reading the polls everyday like an obsessive compulsive (fair description by the way). I would show her the polls and say, I believe Obama is going to win, but he's not a lock, and no matter what, he ain't winning Georgia (especially after the Palin picked sent McCain's lead in the polls into the 15 - 20% range). She would ask why I volunteer so hard, and I would tell her a few things: 1) I believe in building the party, 2) I am hoping if Obama can get it close here, then maybe Jim Martin can win, and 3) Every extra vote in the final national totals is an ever so slight increase in our mandate.

I want to follow up Todd's post with my own kudos to Hillary Clinton!  I saw her on CNN, not Fox News, and I thought she was outstanding in her surrogacy tonight.

Let me start by explaining that I have been a Barack Obama supporter since before he announced, but I have also been a big fan of Hillary Clinton.  In my opinion, a lot of Obama supporters were extremely unfair in their critiquing of her primary campaign.  As the GE has proven, campaigns are tough and you can't expect candidates to give up without a fight.  I think Obama's debate performances have been excellent, better than they ever were during the Primaries, and I give Hillary a lot of credit for sharpening him up for these.

This is a short diary, but one I hope you will enjoy, especially early on Barack's 47th birthday.  

Jerome, turn WI from Red to Blue for Obama, and it's now 300 - 238.  While Hillary is ahead using current polling (ignoring lots of arguments over how she would be doing if she were front-runner), it's hard to argue that Barack is not electable.

Let me start with the link.

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollRepo rt.aspx?g=59d53a82-4258-4988-be6a-3e0e67 ecf4df

A few things I noticed:

Let me start by saying that I am someone who is a Obama supporter, volunteer, and modest donor, and also as someone who thinks Hillary should be the VP nominee.  In the last several days, I have started to realize that there is a lot of parallel between the path that led to Obama virtually securing the nomination the path that may now be  leading to Hillary as the VP nominee, forced against his will.

If Barack did not want Hillary as VP, then I think he has made a lot of the same mistakes that she made to cost her the nomination.  In my opinion, he has made a lot of decisions that worked fine for winning the nomination but also have resulted in her supporters getting riled up against him.  To me, many of these decisions parallel some of the decisions that she made that have cost her so dearly.

Some examples: