So it's official - John McCain has thrown a Hail Mary and tapped Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. The trad med types are ga-ga about what a game-changing choice Palin is. And they're right. It is a game-changer. The Palin pick takes a race already leaning toward Obama and pushes it further into his corner. Why? Because Sarah Palin is the most unqualified VP nominee in modern history, with the possible exception ...

The Sarah Quayle Palin pick is an abandonment of the "Obama is not ready to lead" attack lines. Those are dead, and to be honest, while that line didn't work for Hillary and it had limited traction for McCain, it still had some traction. That attack line is gone. Quayle Palin is also a an ideologue, on choice, on the environment, on energy -- all the way down the line. This an ideological pick in ...

Obama's speech ended just shy of 11 p.m. ET. Babington's attack piece was posted at: Aug 28, 11:26 PM EDT The piece is 603 words. So we are to believe, that Babington watched the speech, gave it due consideration, wrote it, turned it in, went through editing, when through copyediting, was then posted online -- all in 26 minutes? Update: Full Olbermann reaction: Mr. Babington got the length of the speech wrong by at least ...

McCain's response to being pwned by the Senator from Illinois: "Tonight, Americans witnessed a misleading speech that was so fundamentally at odds with the meager record of Barack Obama," spokesman Tucker Bounds said. "When the temple comes down, the fireworks end, and the words are over, the facts remain: Senator Obama still has no record of bipartisanship, still opposes offshore drilling, still voted to raise taxes on those making just $42,000 per year, and still ...

John McCain released an ad today congratulating Barack Obama: JOHN MCCAIN: Senator Obama, this is truly a good day for America. Too often the achievements of our opponents go unnoticed. So I wanted to stop and say, congratulations. How perfect that your nomination would come on this historic day. Tomorrow, we'll be back at it. But tonight Senator, job well done. I'm John McCain and I approved this message. Job well done, Senator Obama. And ...

America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to ...

Update by kos: Notice how every crowd shot has people of color in them? What at the RNC convention, as the cameras seek out the same three people over and over again to provide the fiction of diversity. Update by georgia10: Whoa, he just raised the question of who has the "temperament" to be president. Update by georgia10: One of the most lethal lines of the night, about McCain: McCain says he'll follow Osama bin ...

Grand slam doesn't even describe this speech. Obama is kicking ass...mostly John McCain's ass. Update by georgia10: Gay marriage, guns, abortion, social security, and more. When you touch the third, fourth, fifth and six rails of American politics in your acceptance speech, that's gutsy. And brilliant.

In Washington, they call this the ownership society. But what it means is, you're on your own.... ....Well, it's time for them to own their failure. Lots of applause here in the Big Tent. Update by georgia10: I suspect the reaction here in the Big Tent is similar to the reaction in your living rooms or at the watch parties you're at. Cheers, clapping, and an overwhelming sense of relief that, yes folks, this is ...

John McCain owns more homes than he can remember. John McCain pays at least 3 times as much per year for the salaries of household servants as the average American household earns. And John McCain thinks Americans are too lazy to do strenuous work for $50 an hour. In April 2006, John McCain taunted workers at an AFL-CIO meeting who were concerned that immigration tends to depress wages in the US. Here's a transcript of ...

Sometimes unity sucks. Thousands stood in the warm temperatures in Denver, Colorado, on Thursday to wait in lines that are nearly six miles long, according to local police.

Schweitzer was the hit of the conventioneers Tuesday night, and he made a pretty good impression at the Big Tent yesterday. Goldy asked a few questions and caught his Q&A session here.

Biden, yesterday, on John McCain's service: "These times require more than a good soldier. They require a wise leader." And the McCain camp's weak tea response: The McCain campaign immediately struck back at Biden last night, saying, "Joe Biden is right. We need more than a good soldier, we need a leader with the experience and judgment to serve as commander in chief from day one. That leader is John McCain." Something's missing from this ...

At the Big Tent, Daily Kos had a couple extra tickets for Obama's speech tonight at Invesco Field. A hot commodity here, to be sure. But we weren't just going to give them away. Instead, whoever supplied the best answer to this question would win the tickets: Barack Obama is to John McCain as _____ is to ________. The winners: Barack Obama is John McCain as Jay-Z is to Vanilla Ice. and Barack Obama is ...

The right wing noise machine has been screeching away these past months about files stored at the Daley Library in Illinois relating to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an education reform group. Both Barack Obama and William Ayers served on the group's board. Over 1,000 files were recently released, and as all in the reality-based community already knew, there's nothing really there: A partial examination of the documents did not reveal anything startling about the link ...

Behold. There are still bugs being worked, this is still very much beta. But it's almost ready. On election night, election results will stream in real-time through this widget, like those of big media sites like the NY Times and CNN. I could try and explain all the features, but it's best that you just click around and discover them for yourself.

John Kerry reporting for duty .... Before John McCain debates Barack Obama, he needs to finish the debate with John McCain.

Devilstower and I just went to a talk here at the DNC featuring T. Boone Pickens. Everyone was under the impression that the event would involve an actual discussion (as in, a Q & A session, like nearly all of the other Big Tent special topic sessions). We had a really energetic live blog thread going, where all of you were submitting questions. Sorry, guys. Apparently, the whole thing was just a sales pitch. T. ...

Marc Ambinder (whose reporting has been must-read) and Mark Blumenthal offer nuggets from an on-the-record briefing by David Plouffe. From Ambinder: Barack Obama's margin among independent swing-voting women and sporadically voting Democrats are two of the main metrics his campaign is closely monitoring, Obama's election manager, David Plouffe, said today. Plouffe, speaking to reporters, editors and executives of the Atlantic Media company in a throwback conference room in downtown Denver, said that Obama's internal polling ...